


soul of a ghost town

by caandleknight



Category: The 100 (TV), The 100 (TV) RPF, The 100 Series - Kass Morgan
Genre: 4+1, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Bellarke, Canon-Typical Violence, Endgame Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin, F/M, Fix-It, Friends With Benefits, Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Platonic (sure) bed sharing, Porn With Plot, Smut, Talking about the radio calls. yes., Touch-Starved, Tropes, Underage Drinking, Yearning, blake siblings, dealing with baggage, no cheating on echo, return to earth, so much hurting. sprinkled with laughter.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:21:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 58,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25562767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caandleknight/pseuds/caandleknight
Summary: Season 7 is a dumpster fire, and I've elected to ignore it:Bellamy/Clarke. Bellarke. Canon-divergence. Fix-it. A complete season 7 rewrite.——————Captured by Bardo, Bellamy is tortured with four lives he could have had with Clarke: divergences from what he remembers happening. Whether the Ark never came down, or Clarke made it to the Ring. Whether he kissed her.When he wakes up, he has to learn to live with the loss.——————Nominated for two 2020 Bellarke FanFiction awards
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin, minor Octavia Blake/Lincoln - Relationship
Comments: 114
Kudos: 309





	1. a coward's switchblade

**Author's Note:**

> I did my best with Trigedasleng. It has a different syntax.
> 
> Ignore season 7. fix-it time.

_Reverie_

noun

_-state of being lost in one's thoughts; a daydream._

_-desired and impractical idea or theory._

..

_**time of diversion:** _

_**01:38:24** _

_**October 2, 2149** _

_**codename:** _

_**bellamy blake** _

_**i. see, more than a bullet.** _

Bellamy Blake's opinion of Clarke Griffin has never been a constant thing.

His first impression was: pretty, naïve, _lucky_. He was twelve, and her mother was nursing a cut on his arm in medical. She was six, printing her dreams with crayons in the corner.

She was outgoing, grabbing attention with her smile. Clarke loved freely with sweets between her teeth. When Bellamy was six, he was suffocating in responsibility. Still though, he couldn't find it in himself to be cruel to this cute, little kid.

She may have been ignorant, but she was kind.

..

His second impression was: bitchy, stuck-up, and _privileged_. Her stupid hair pulled around her head in a stupid crown.

Like a goddamn princess.

Stubborn too, refusing to take that bracelet off her prissy little wrist. She's judgy. Contempt fills her eyes: he's from the lowly _Factory_ station, after all. She's a demon and a brat. Her and Spacewalker take the panther without removing their wristbands.

Bellamy fucking _lets_ her, punching the next kid who tries.

There are a few reasons his impression is wrong: a) she won't let Jasper Jordan die.

Bellamy adds far-fetched idealist to a list he shouldn't have.

She's annoying, and she's too much of an optimist. Her ignorance clearly never went away. The princess is too pure, like an angel in every wrong way: blind to the atrocities, to the sins.

Clarke is holding onto a dead boy. It's pitiful to watch. So he threatens to kill Jordan, and do it himself. Her eyes burn him with utter hatred. Bellamy has the urge to wink at her because it'll piss off the prissy little angel that much more.

Instead, she turns back to Jordan, like Bellamy Blake from Factory station isn't worth her time.

..

Bellamy can't do it.

His knife is too heavy, like killing this suffering boy has a cost to it. Charon's coin is in Bellamy's mouth, tasting metallic (like blood), ready to cross River Styx into the Underworld. If he kills Atom, he'll lose his soul. That's the cost.

Bellamy Blake didn't know he still had a soul.

So: b) Clarke does it, taking the burden from his cold, clammy hands (the first of many). His opinion gets stuck in his throat. She shakes and she cries, killing a man begging for death. A man who has no chance.

( _"I do believe in second chances though,"_ she will tell him later, after coughing up blood with their organs.

He will realize she means that in every possible way.)

Clarke kills Atom, or releases him, pities him, giving him mercy. _Kill me. Kill me._ A demon doesn't grant mercy, and an angel doesn't kill.

Where does mercy kill fit?

He starts to think about it more and more, especially when that passion enters her eyes. The determined kind that killed Atom and entranced Bellamy all at once.

He just wants to see it again, to know what bravery looks like, because Bellamy is a coward, and a selfish one, but she makes him want to be more than that.

..

It wasn't the him in the sky, she judged; it was the him on the ground.

When she forgives him, accepts him, and lastly, earns him a pardon, Bellamy contemplates whether he can be more, maybe kinder, maybe braver. He stops trying to figure her out, because if there's one thing Clarke Griffin can do, it's subvert his expectations. She isn't the smartest, or the strongest, or the prettiest.

But: c) she's the most determined person he's ever met.

They argue in the faint glow of his tent. She turns her face up, lips pressing together in that eye-catching way. Clarke pushes her finger into his chest, shouting his idiocies and mistakes.

He thinks she has pretty lips, too pretty. Bellamy doesn't tell her that though.

"We can't just choose whose opinions matter, _Bellamy,_ " she chastises him. "You can't scare them like that."

He has a temper. Apparently, he needs to reign it in.

How she leans over him, he'll never fucking know. Clarke is nearly half a foot shorter than him, but more than makes up for it in sheer confidence.

Confidence is hot. She's hot.

(That's all. That's why he can't look away from her. He'll fuck her eventually, release some of this tension they have building. Probably while they're fighting. He'll get her out of his system, _finally_.)

"We need to get that wall done, Clarke."

"Sterling _suggested_ a hunting party." She pokes him in the chest, leaning forward. "I know you're stressed, but you don't get to be an ass. You're a leader, _their_ leader."

Her lips part and his eyes drop. He thinks about kissing her too much, but he doesn't do it. He can't bring himself to lean down and press his lips to hers.

It's not that he's nervous; he's very confident in the sexual aspect of life, actually.

How is she so kind, and strong all at once? How does she handle all these kids and their constant needs? She crosses her arms, pinching her brows. Her feet tap the dirt in frustration.

And finally, if not devastatingly: d)

"You're better than that."

There she goes again, seeing his humanity when he's given her no reason to. It has nothing to do with who he was on the Ark. Better. She leaves him there in the tent, his hand clenched on the hatchet hanging at his thigh.

A sigh falls from his lips, one that tastes like _better, murderer_ and _failure_ all in one.

..

Bellamy never thought he'd finally kiss her in the midst of her suffering, never thought she'd kiss him first.

The Exodus ship crashes down from the atmosphere before them, burning up like her breath. Clarke falls to her knees in a sob, and he hesitates before resting his hand on her shoulder. He doesn't know what possesses him to touch her.

(It feels like a path not taken.)

She stiffens for a moment, and panic grows cold in his ears.

Leaning her chin on his fingers, she lifts her eyes to his. They darken to a saturated blue. Clarke stands, and drags him to his tent by hand. He isn't stupid.

He knows what's happening.

But even inside the tent, staring at her, he doesn't move. His muscles tense and his jaw tics. Bellamy makes no advancements as she stands before him, arms crossed.

She's a pretty girl, he notes, soft in every place but the eyes. Her eyes are what make her beautiful, in a scary way.

Bellamy stands at full height as she lifts to her toes, landing the barest of caresses on his lips. Clarke is considerably shorter than him, and he doesn't help at all. She drops to her heels, pulling away swiftly. Her fingers tug the sleeves of her crossed arms, confident and scared: _brave_.

It's an endearing combination.

He realizes she's looking for his confirmation. Bellamy hadn't exactly responded, so he nods. She steps forward, tentatively pressing her lips to his once more.

He kisses her back.

Clarke slides her tongue into his mouth, whimpering. She pushes his jacket off his shoulders. He pulls his lips away for only a moment. "Clarke..." Her lips are puffed and her eyes are red. The breath between them is a flickering candle, begging for release.

She's grieving and kissing, and those things should never mix.

"Just shut up."

He does as he's told. He's not that guy; he won't talk her down. Her shirt comes over her shoulders and she unclasps her bra: grey, Ark-standard. He's seen the article multiple times, on multiple girls. It looks different.

It falls, leaving Bellamy to trail and bite his teeth over her nipples.

A drop runs down her neck, nicking his nose. _Tears_. Bellamy raises his cloudy gaze to her eyes. He's blown out the candle, and he's left with the boiling wax.

It adheres to that soul he didn't know he had, latching onto that self-hatred he can never get away from.

"Princess," he questions, bringing his hand up to wipe her cheek. Clarke's fire is drowning.

"Distract me," she pleads, latching her fingers on his shirt. It's over his head before he says a word. _Protect. Fix._ The urges fly through him, the ones he's been trying to silence since they hit the ground. "Just-I…" not once has he heard her stutter, "make it go away."

Her voice cracks and Bellamy huffs, pressing his lips to hers.

He wipes Clarke's tears away, undoing her half-up hair crown. His lips trail down from the corner of her mouth to her soft collar. Bellamy backs her up, pushing her down on his bed of furs. Her knees wrap around his hips.

Breaking the kiss, he grinds into her spread legs, fabric on fabric.

It creates a devastating friction, like the strike of a match. She squeaks and he decides his first distraction was successful, grinding again.

When Bellamy imagined it, he never thought he would cover her body in comforting kisses as he slowly tugged her pants off.

His dreams consisted of quick fucks and dominating her into _finally shutting up._ But now that she's not talking, he wants it. Chastise him. Criticize him.

Hell, if she would just tell him about her day.

Clasping their hands as she struggles to breathe, her cries dissolve into moans. His fingers move into her underwear, lips kissing comforts into her ears. Bellamy lowers his head between her legs in a desperate attempt to make her feel better, to make her come undone and forget everything wrong in the world. He never thought he'd be that guy.

He's always been good at sex, but he's never really cared if they came more than once or not.

He wants her to though, lots more. Clarke comes on his lips, at the press of his tongue, hugging her hips to his face. Then, she trembles on his fingers as he cranes his neck. He pulls her bottom lip between his teeth, massaging a kiss into her as he thrusts his fingers.

She's so beautiful, falling apart at his hands. It's not how he'd imagined. Clarke shatters all the same.

He makes it happen again. On his cock, she cries out and bites his neck hard enough to bruise. "That's it, Princess," he whispers in her ear, before grunting and following her lead into oblivion.

He collapses above her, pressing his face into her neck. Bellamy rolls away and she doesn't follow. Clarke doesn't lay her head on his chess, naked and sweaty. He chastises himself for wanting her to. This isn't different than Roma, or Bree.

But even they cuddled sometimes, so maybe it isn't too weird to ask.

She's hot and interested in sex; that's all he cares for. He looks from her closed eyes to her lips, chest warming. He freezes. Bellamy rolls over to stare at the seams stitching his tent, tracing them, absolutely terrified by how much he _feels_.

He hears her crying, but he doesn't move, not until she touches him.

 _Coward_.

Her fingers tickle his spine, an invitation, vulnerable and sweet. He flips over a little too quickly. Those strong eyes are the first things to greet him, and they're still blue, even crying.

They're the same, just cracking like a vase on cement.

"Bell—" she nearly chokes on the word, arms curling in towards her naked body. No one calls him that but O—and to be honest, Clarke choked on her tears. "Bellamy." Fuck his fear. Look at her; she's a beaten, broken girl, with no fire in her eyes. He tugs her into his arms and she sobs, the ugly kind. "She's dead."

"Yeah."

"I never- forgave her, and she's _dead_."

He's so shit at comforting, but he rubs circles into her shoulder blades. Eventually, Clarke falls asleep, breathing stuttered and quaking.

His fingers brush the hair from her face. The wax is beginning to cool, but it has slithered and melted its way into every crevice of his rib cage, from the valves of his heart to how his sternum stabs his lungs. He never half cares, and he's a coward.

Combinations like that kill three-hundred-and-twenty people sometimes.

..

Bellamy wakes up in the morning, naked, which isn't new. Clarke isn't there (which isn't new either).

Drowsily (embarrassingly), his hand reaches out to where Clarke Griffin was, and it's empty, void of any heat, any evidence.

Selectively, he ignores the level of panic he experiences; he ignores how he shoots straight up, eyes wide and flared. Bellamy searches for blonde hair, before crashing down against his furs.

Heaving a sigh, he ignores how desperate and sad it sounds.

Lastly, he ignores how quickly he dresses and bursts out of his tent. He's never up this early.

It even shocks Miller, who's on watch. He jumps off the tree he'd been against and tries to pretend he wasn't dozing. Bellamy doesn't really care.

Mornings really are weird, he thinks, all grey skies. A certain moistness sticks to his tongue. Hands in his jacket pockets, he slouches his way to medbay.

His steps are aloof, and his mouth is a line. He doesn't care.

Bellamy sees her, and stutter stops. Clarke hurries out of the dropship, swaying the tarp flap behind her. She stokes the fire, chats with Monty, and starts a batch of seaweed tea before disappearing back inside the dropship.

It's like it never happened.

Bellamy's eyes follow her, pocketed hands clenching, yet keeping his shoulders high. He settles by the fire she stoked, next to Monty and Jasper, focusing on their words to keep his mind busy.

He realizes how exhausted he is; he didn't sleep much last night. Bellamy nearly blushes. What is wrong with him?

He's flushing like a child caught lying, and over sex.

She appears again, walking out of the dropship with a bucket in her hands, ready to collect seaweed presumably. Clarke sees him. For a moment, she stops, clenching her fingers on the bucket's handle. Her expression doesn't change. She sets back her shoulders, stepping toward the gate without another glance.

His heart squeezes without his consent, plummeting to his feet. It's a similar feeling to when the dropship was falling from the sky.

Then, she stops.

Clarke sets down the bucket, turning around to walk up to where he sits. A rush of nervousness runs through him, wondering what she's going to say.

"We need to check out the crash sight," she forces casually, hands on her hips. Confident as she always is, Clarke dares him to question her.

"Okay."

He'd never thought she'd be the one to pretend it never happened. His ears numb with embarrassment, pinking as he unconsciously pulls his knees up to his chest.

He thought...well, maybe—he doesn't know what he thought.

"Now."

..

The walk to the crash sight is a painful affair.

Bellamy had no one left he cared for on the Ark, but many of the hundred did, and their anxiety is not to be ignored. He can't stop thinking about what happened between him and Clarke though, and it definitely makes him a bad person.

Death follows these children and he's thinking about sex.

Bellamy looks at Clarke, and he grits his teeth with every step he takes, clutching his gun. His anger unravels and tightens stupidly over and over. _How-is-she-fine?_ and _I-should-be-fine-too_ argue in his mind.

The exodus ship is a charred graveyard, and the teens who wander are the ghosts.

Clarke kneels in the ash, and he stands ten or fifteen strides away, next to sparking wires and a dripping red substance. His gaze skims the kids. Miller wipes his eyes: he had a father, Bellamy remembers. Monroe seems lost. Raven pokes through the debris, lips pursed with sour lemons at Finn. Spacewalker hovers over Clarke's shoulder.

She needs a minute, but just the one.

Back to her feet, Clarke gives orders that sound like requests. Bellamy can see Clarke's withering soul, and maybe he's not a completely bloodied conscience, because he wants to make it better.

Make her smile. Light a candle.

Bellamy imagines grabbing her hand, in fact, and thumbing her frayed knuckles. He doesn't though, leaving that to Spacewalker. His eyes trace over them, gun hardening in his hold. Fucking her was supposed to get her out of his system, but he's stupid like that. He is burning, and candle wax is thick in his lungs. He is a stupid boy.

He's always been stupid like that.

..

Wounded as his pride may be, he lets her do whatever the hell she wants with him. (The irony isn't lost on him.) It's stress relief, he tells himself. Easy, fun. His kind of affair. Admittedly, this is quite fun, hiding it from camp. They 'hate' each other, after all.

This time, Clarke ambushes him in the dropship, granting him the blowjob of a lifetime. He grabs her hair, thrusting into her open mouth softly. He comes alarmingly fast, but not too embarrassingly.

She stands, wiping her face before pressing a light kiss to his lips. "We need seaweed." She smells like sweat, and tastes like him. He tastes gross.

He grins at her.

"Hell of a way to let me know," he breathes. His hands run through his sweaty hair as he leans back against the wall. Clarke smirks, pressing her forearms against his chest.

"I'm gonna go do that."

She pushes off of him, sauntering out of the dropship as he smacks his head back against the wall. The dull thud cancels out his worries for a minute.

She's so far _into his system;_ she has become a cog in his clock. A vital cog of his clock.

For the rest of the day, he wears a grin, eyes searching for her every chance they get. Over supper time's fire, he winks at her, chucking a nut in his mouth. She rolls her eyes, turning back to her conversation with Raven.

His sister coughs, bringing his eyes back to her.

"Very subtle, Bell."

He glares at her, shrugging his jacket up his shoulders in nonchalance. Octavia is crazy, and his sister, so if she wants to look too far into things, she can. It's meaningless sex. They're fucking, and he's Bellamy; meaningless sex is his thing, so if the meaningless sex is good, he's not going to say no. Meaningless.

Octavia didn't really say anything in the first place, but here he is, having a mental argument with his sister. Excuse after reason.

She just raises a brow and laughs.

He scowls, but glances at Clarke once more for good measure. She winks at him first. His lips quirk, popping a nut in his mouth, smug in his skin.

The fire crackles and sparks, glowing off her hair. It's an odd thing to notice.

"Subtle indeed," Octavia teases, and he doesn't even have it in him to scowl.

..

Bellamy never goes to her first, in his desperate conviction that this (whatever it is) means absolutely nothing to him. She doesn't seem to care, and it only solidifies his decision. Bellamy is not about to throw himself out there when she doesn't even _care_.

Not that there's anything to throw out there.

She kisses him on the neck once, pushing him up against a tree. He flips them and fills her with his fingers because he may be a little emotionally stunted but he isn't submissive, (he is _sometimes_ , but it's hot when she bosses him around.) He eats her out when her shoulders look like bricks: when her steps stop leaving the mud, and start dragging through it. The trenches of war.

They never talk about it; it just happens. This isn't exclusive, as far as he can tell, but it's not like he's going to ask.

For some reason, Bellamy wants it exclusive. She isn't _his_ , of course. She isn't _anyone's_ , surely doesn't _listen_ to anyone. Bellamy starts saying no to Roma and Bree casually. "Not tonight," or "maybe later," but maybe later never comes. He makes sure Clarke does though. Hard. If he wants this (whatever _this_ is) to keep happening, it has to be good.

She never stays the morning and he really wants her to, but he never says a thing.

He's a fucking coward.

..

Spacewalker is just in front of him when the inferno begins.

Bellamy throws himself around Finn, carving into him and taking the brunt of the explosion. They're thrown apart, and he _burns_. For a second, he doesn't realize it.

Then, he breathes, and it stinks like burnt rubber and bodies.

Rolling around, he tries to squash the flames. They smother. When he finally settles, his hair feels smoky, heavy, and his face presses into moss and a particularly uncomfortable stick.

He nearly starts laughing.

The pain starts, seizing him when he tries to move, move in _any way at all._ He tries to sit up, but when Bellamy shifts his arm, his jacket tries to follow, but _can't_.

Fuck. It's indescribable, it's—just _fuck_. He's fluent in English, right?

The leather of his jacket has seared to his skin, melting into third-degree burns and it boils when he moves. It boils when he doesn't. Where's Clarke when you need her?

 _Clarke_.

Proud: he thinks as he lays there, practically catatonic. He's proud of her for closing that door (on him) on Finn.

His body is not proud though, it's burned and _fuck, fuck, fuck._ He smells like their smoking shack, all that cooking meat. Bellamy's eyes water as he collapses into the moist brush, trying to get up again.

Moss fills his mouth, tasting like rotten broccoli.

He tries again, and then once more. Fear filters heavily into his throat, because _he can't move._ "Bellamy?" Finn prods. Bellamy forgot he was there. Spacewalker rolls him over onto his back.

 _Fuck._ Stupid fucking kid.

Can't he see the simmering smoke rising from the jacket? Can't he see the melted leather? Bellamy grimaces, screwing into a grunt. "Bellamy!" He pushes him back on his stomach. "You're gonna be okay." Spacewalker rises, dragging Bellamy by his arms, tearing his blisters, making them bleed. His vision blackens because it feels like his arms are ripping from their sockets.

He's a little scared.

..

Bellamy wakes up in the dark.

Dreary cave walls greet him with a fire. Crouching a couple feet away, Spacewalker stokes the flames, and Bellamy watches, apprehensive of moving.

The pain comes anyway. Bellamy decides to do something productive with it.

"We need…" he grunts into the furs at his face. Is this Lincoln's cave? "To get this jacket off me." This is Lincoln's bed too. Bellamy knows his sister has been here.

That's fucking gross.

"It's melted to your skin!" _Really? It is?_ Bellamy groans, hands fisting as prickles and jolts pour out from his skin. Sombrely, Finn stares at the flames, apprehensive fear in his eyes.

Why does it hurt so bad? He isn't even _moving_.

He pushes up again, and fails, hands slipping in their sweat. Tears fill his eyes, because it just won't stop. It's a tingling, prickling sting. It claws down every nerve.

(" _It's going to get infected,_ " Clarke would tell him annoyingly, but she'd be right.)

"Go get her," Bellamy grunts.

"What?" Finn turns to look at him.

He stiffens, trying to work through words that make sense. Each syllable is choppy. "Go to camp- get Clarke." Constant tingling pulls at his skin and he thinks Spacewalker needs to move his ass. Bellamy doesn't know if Finn listened, because his burns ache for what feels like centuries, zoning out everything else in the sheer inferno.

..

Turns out, her mother isn't dead.

It's a fact Bellamy learns when he can't even think straight. Someone sits next to him, lightly pressing into his back. Embarrassingly, Bellamy whispers, "Clarke?"

"Not quite." It's a clipped response, from someone clearly not fond of him in the first place. "Jackson, pull him on the stretcher." Jackson, presumably—and someone else—does as they're told.

Will people stop grabbing his arms? They're sort of attached to the problem.

He yelps when they pull, reopening every scab on his body. He feels blood, but he doesn't smell the copper that comes with it, so maybe it's puss.

He hears a girl. "You're hurting him!" _Clarke_.

It should scare him how much his body relaxes at the sound.

Fuck, it burns so bad. His stretcher is lifted and he's pulled into the sunlight for what feels like the first time in days (probably hours). Drowsy and choked, he realizes his legs are burned too and his arms. He sees Finn, who is missing half his hair.

He wonders how his own hair is doing.

It's a stupid thought, but he'll take anything that distracts him from the charred coals of his back, distract him from whatever procedure he's going to have to endure.

His teeth grit. _Distraction. Please. Any._

A small hand grabs his, a cool, white one, scarred thinly from sticks and stained infinitely from pencil lead. He clutches it with his life because he's scared, and for once, he's okay with being a coward.

He gets it right this time. "Clarke…"

Even his teeth taste like burning skeletons. His cloudy gaze meets hers as they wander through the forest. What if he dies? What are they going to do about his back?

"You don't get to die." She thumbs his hand, bringing his mind back to this moment.

"I thought—" _ouch_ , not moving is hard. "We don't choose who lives and who dies," is all he says, lips kissing the dirt on the stretcher.

Squeezing his hand, Clarke laughs. It's a short-bursted 'ha', barely lifting her lips.

It's a lovely sound, he thinks.

..

What's happening?

A cold table presses into his face."We have to cut around it." He hears shuffling. "Mom! Politics later, save him now!"

He falls out of consciousness to the words "Jaha pardoned him!" and "Thelonious isn't here!"

In his nightmares, he hears "culling."

..

He jolts awake again to stinging, the unbearable kind.

It's like getting a vaccine, the kind of pinch you have to just sit through, but it lasts as long as night-watch. Pain resonates, making the hair on his arms stand like a soldier. It prickles from his back, through to the tips of his toes.

Bellamy feels like someone is carving into his secrets, picking them apart.

His arms have been freed, jacket cut and torn from his body in every place that isn't adhered. Raven is in front of him, holding all sorts of medical supplies. Right now, a scalpel. Her brows, knit tightly, are shaking with her fingers.

He starts to spasm when he feels a tug, black leather being sliced away, and Raven pushes a wet cloth into his mouth.

"Hold him down," Clarke commands. Miller and Finn push his forearms onto the table as a chilling fear runs through his veins.

His groggy eyes stare at Raven, who has lost her scalpel.

That's because Clarke has it. She cuts into him. Warm fingers burn his back all over again as panic completely seizes his body. Precise slits perimeter the adhered leather.

His teeth clench, a vice on the scratchy fabric drying his lips.

"Hey, it'll be over soon." He latches onto the strength in Clarke's voice, leaching off her kindness. "You gotta be okay. Be okay for me, Bellamy." She cuts again, leaving him to scream into the cloth. Dizziness settles over his mind, lightheaded and buzzing. "Monty! Moonshine!" Panic enraptures her too, clearly, but Bellamy's vision blurs so he can't decide.

 _Shock, shock, shock._ He remembers them telling him about it in First Aid training as a guard. _Shock. Shock. Shock._

"I need you, Bellamy. Stay awake for me, 'kay?" It's a broken tone, a soft one.

That's not how shock works, Clarke. He's not in shock though; he's only panicking, trying to push off his forearms to get away.

More cuts. Down his spine, into the small of his back, and he thinks a couple undignified screams make it through his gag. He pulls at his arms, failing to release them, but he tries his legs too.

They're weighted down. Everything is. His mind. His body, but his heart is thumping off the table.

Metal clatters into a bucket at her feet, trembling with her hands. He'd breathe a sigh of relief, but his back is covered in third-degree burns and he's tired of feeling them.

His reprieve doesn't last.

A cold, burning substance is poured onto him. He nearly blacks out in an instant, slamming his fists down and arching his back away from the liquid. Bellamy screams into the cloth as Raven brings a trembling cup to her lips, taking a gulp he envies.

Monty Green for the win.

For the first time in maybe three-thousand years, Bellamy feels something soothe him. A cold balm is rubbed onto his back, jellying him into relaxation.

"You're okay," Clarke murmurs, (to him or to herself?).

Collapsing, he lays there, in indefinite and intimate numbness. The pain becomes a throb, and he still can't move, but at least he can think. The cloth falls from his lips. His clammy arms are released as Raven laughs, bringing that wretched cup to his lips. It's a good laugh, the kind that has her leaning back in her chair.

She has a brace on her leg, he realizes, taking a gulp.

He also notices they're in a room. Bellamy hasn't been in a room with four walls and a door in months. It's a luxury he took for granted.

"We're on the Ark," Clarke amends his wordless question with a whisper.

 _The Ark?_ He merely hums, too tired to ask the question when he doesn't really care about the answer.

Murphy stands guard at the door, holding a rifle. _Murphy?_ Bellamy's mind is so broken, a ghost town filled with people.

Monty gathers up his herbs, screwing on caps. Miller leans against the wall, pulling his beanie over his forehead in relief. Raven laughs at him from her chair, and Clarke… Clarke's pressing her balm covered fingers into his mutilated skin.

"We're the only cool ones here, Blake." Raven's hand slaps her bummed leg, and he dazedly stares at her. "Surgery Without Anaesthesia Gang. Swag." He barely notices Finn gathering up the pieces of his jacket, rubbery and charred.

Bellamy needs to thank Finn for saving him.

First, he needs to know what's happening. "What did you do?" It's groggy, and he's reaching for Raven's cup.

"They refused to treat you. Ark Princess had other ideas," Raven grins, bringing the cup to his lips. Clarke is smiling, proud of herself; he can tell. He wishes he could just sit up and look at her, watch her lips pull up.

She's called over by Monty, and Finn follows her, because he's Finn.

"You think they'll want a pair of cripples?" Bellamy grunts in response, unwilling to admit he thought the same thought. "Lighten up, she thought she killed you."

"Finn."

"Not how I saw it." He wants to ask her what she means, but he doesn't.

..

Three weeks later, Clarke sits him up.

Blood rushes from his head and he grows weary for about ten seconds. Abby stands in front of him, making him tense even though nothing has happened yet.

"You convinced them?" He murmurs to her as she circles, settling in front of him. Her mother watches them over Clarke's shoulder, calculating. He really wishes he had a shirt on.

Her arms are crossed and she doesn't like him.

"We threatened to split from the Ark if they didn't hold up their promises, so they did." Abby glares at him. Clarke's hands trail over the bandages on his arms, pulling the rusty, red-stained gauze away. "You were _pardoned_."

His chest tenses when she traces over a pinking spot on his elbow, gaze flitting to her mother's glare.

"Thank you, for that." It was all her after all.

Blushing, Clarke ducks her gaze to focus on undressing his arm. "...and they need us to deal with the Grounders." He nearly laughs at the idea.

He imagines that brave Clarke he knows, hands on her hips, stating fact after fact about how the Ark would collapse on this dreadful planet without them. Clarke finishes up his arms, moving to his back. As she unwraps that first strip, he cringes, hearing her gasp. _Of horror,_ he thinks, _of disgust._

It leaves him and Abby to stare(glare) at one another.

"You can go, Mom," Clarke mutters, pulling her hands over his bandages with a tremble. If the scars are anything like the one on his forearm, they're a bright red, raised from the skin and ugly.

"We need to discuss a treaty." Abby takes a step forward.

"He's healing." Her hands push between his shoulder blades, making him wince. "Sorry!" He shakes his head at her.

"Clarke, he's a leader. The grounders aren't going to wait forever. Not after what you did." Clarke sucks in a quick breath, one not meant for anything but fear.

 _What you did._ She saved her people. _What you did._

His fingers clench his thighs, scratching the loose sweatpants. "He's healing," she repeats. Both words are clipped, heavy, holding tears she refuses to shed.

"How can you not care?"

Bellamy's eyes glare at the mother, clenching his jaw. The _mother_. How could she be so blind to Clarke's suffering?

All she does is _care_. Clarke cares so much about everyone else's sanity that she rips her own to shreds, and if her mother can't see that, Bellamy can show her the door.

"She cares." Clarke's hands freeze at his words. "She did what she had to."

The words were meant to cripple Abby, make her leave Clarke alone. They do that relatively well. The words also make relief flood through Clarke's shoulders.

Coming to a stop, in front of him, she meets his soft gaze as he says, "Clarke'll get me up to speed, then we'll talk." It's a good solution.

She sets the dirty, rusted bandages at his side, brushing his hand.

But Abby still doesn't go, crossing her arms. Her eyes narrow at him and her daughter, and he realizes this is no longer about politics. She's got the wrong idea, but he can leave her a sign to Finn Collins if she wants.

"Mom."

Finally, the woman grumbles, leaving with a confident air. The moment she does, Clarke loosens up, finally acting more herself.

Silence fills out the room, but it's a comfortable one. She grabs the salve he's so familiar with by now, unscrewing the cap.

"Didn't wanna rub me down with your mommy here, Princess?" She scoffs, rolling up her sleeves. Her eyes twinkle at him as she dips her fingers into the cream. "How's it going with her?"

"Fine."

"Clarke." Abby killed her father; she can't be _fine_.

"I had other priorities," she whispers, not looking at him. The salve rests on her fingers. "Finn told me you were gonna rip the jacket off," she murmurs, starting with his left arm.

He hates himself for thinking it; _she's talking to Finn already, that's great._ The coolness filters through his bicep as she rubs, making him sigh. She smiles sadly, smoothing her fingers over the ridge on his skin.

"That was a really bad idea. Just by the way. Asking for nerve damage," she goads with a grin.

He laughs a bit at that, tensing. His teeth grit, back burning. "Tell me about the grounders." Her smile drops, but not in the bad way. It's time to focus. He really doesn't want her mother pestering her.

"They don't want to fight us anymore, not since the Ark came down with guns and electricity."

"Of course." He doesn't sound bitter, just pragmatic. He wouldn't fight either. Bellamy remembers Lincoln's absolute panic when Raven whipped out wires.

"They offered a treaty, but only to us." She rewraps his left arm, moving to the right.

"Us?"

"Me and you." Him and Clarke, as an 'us'. It doesn't even sound bitter on his tongue.

"Your thoughts?" His eyes trace her face, then down her body, noticing a hollowness in her collar and cheeks. Has she been eating?

"I'm tired of fighting," she sighs, "and Lincoln says we can try for a trade system—after everything settles."

"Octavia?" His breaths weigh down like anvils. After that arrow hit her, his worry had skyrocketed.

"They're here," she pauses, "two days ago."

"She hasn't visited." His voice is broody, pushing his hands into his thighs again.

"They wouldn't let her." It makes him feel better and worse. At least she didn't _avoid_ him. "The Ark doesn't exactly see Lincoln as an ally." He nods distractedly.

Do they see anyone as an ally?

She moves behind him and the conversation lulls as she drags her fingers over his disgusting skin, halting multiple times to breathe in heavily. They're probably pussing too (he knows they aren't, but his mind needs a moment to be shallow), and he fidgets in his insecurity. He used to be proud of his strength, his lean muscle, sauntering around camp like he knew he was attractive.

Of course, maybe he wanted Clarke to look once or twice, trace her eyes over him. She didn't.

She's looking now, he thinks bitterly, in disgust as she heaves again. He glances back, noticing how she won't meet his gaze.

"I'm glad you're okay." She murmurs and his heart picks up its beat. "We need you."

Right, he's a leader. He nearly forgot.

..

One week later, he starts his life again, moving into a tent inside—what was it again?—Camp Jaha. Oh yeah, that guy he shot that one time.

Clarke brings a jacket to him in medbay. Everyone has one. It was a gift from the Ark, congratulating him on his recovery.

He and Clarke both know it is a claim on him.

They carry his brief number of belongings to his tent, which is across camp from hers. Her mother really does try. When everything is in its place, she lingers, clasping her arms behind her back. Finally, she offers, "I'll show you 'round camp tomorrow morning."

(If he was braver, he would've just asked her to stay.)

And she's gone, leaving him to his bed, and his meagre belongings. Some clothes, a leather jacket he'll never wear, and a gun. Bellamy really thought there was more to him than that.

(He's got his scars, too.)

..

Bellamy rises near ten o'clock, when the sun is already burning. He tugs a grey t-shirt over his head without looking in the mirror. He glances at the camp-issued leather jacket hanging from his desk chair.

It mocks him.

His scars itch at the thought of wearing it. Bellamy used to wear one all the time, didn't he?

He doesn't put it on, regardless of how dumb he knows it is. He doesn't even know why he accepted it, honestly. Oh, that's right, to prevent Clarke having to deal with her whining mom.

He still doesn't put it on.

Pushing the flap aside, he exits his tent. She's the first thing he notices, grey sky dulling her braided hair. Her arms are crossed, trapping the warmth inside her navy hoodie.

She didn't wear hers either, but she probably did it out of sheer rebellion, not suffocating fear. He shivers with the wind. At least, she has something with sleeves though.

"Ready?" He nods. She stands, leading the way.

At first, he's overwhelmed. For nearly three months, he was surrounded by less than a hundred people and a shoddy wooden wall. Then, maybe a month of various members of the hundred visiting: mostly Miller, Octavia and Clarke though. Jasper too.

Now, it's so busy.

Now, nearly a thousand people roam around him, carrying lumber and—is that a fence of wires? (What's the point? Then he hears the buzzing, and he's so glad he didn't ask that dumb question.)

He sees people working on piping, digging up dirt for real bathrooms, not latrines. There's so much happening. Children scream as they scurry by, nearly knocking him off his feet. His eyes follow them, distracted. He grins. They're all so carefree, playing tag.

Bellamy wishes Octavia could've had the chance.

His head buzzes as he watches his life wander around him. He feels like a guest in his own body. _Culture shock,_ he read about it once, and he thinks, this time, he's applying 'shock' correctly.

Clarke. He pokes his head around, searching.

This keeps happening, damnit, losing her in the fray. A second later, his eyes latch onto her simply braided hair a couple of paces ahead of him.

Bellamy rushes his steps to catch up, knocking into a man. He stumbles forward a bit, before straightening.

He looks at Bellamy, and doesn't seem to be angry. His face is wrinkled, and kind. Bellamy recognizes him. Finally, a face he can place, kind of. He's familiar anyway. His hair is greyed, peppery, and his smile reminds him of someone. The crinkling in his brown-eyes has Bellamy prodding his memories. He is an older, shorter fellow, but he just can't place him.

Peter comes around the corner, holding a basket of apples. _Oh._

It's his father, Bellamy realizes (with a pang in his heart, one that makes no sense; it's Peter and his father, and that's all.)

Peter greets him, asking about his recovery.

Bellamy, trying to avoid the guilt in his bones, answers, "good." His eyes trace over the crowd for comfort (for Clarke).

When he sees her, she stands twenty paces away with mock-grump, staring at him, unaware of his discomfort.

Eventually, she visibly sighs, rolling her eyes at him, before doubling-back in a stomp to get him, again. He grins at her because she's smiling, and she can't hide her amusement behind annoyance with him anymore.

He can't hide his care with scorn.

When she arrives at his side, Clarke grants the man a faint smile. The father looks passed her to Bellamy. "Thank you," Bellamy stares at the man, "for saving him this time."

His heart plummets, and he can't fathom why. Clarke notices this time, close enough to use her eyes, but doesn't seem to hear the man's unsettling words.

Giving the father a farewell nod, Clarke snatches his hand and doesn't let go. She drags Bellamy everywhere she can, to all her favourite places—the pond that faces the mountains, most notably—then to all their friends.

They catch Harper and Monty behind the fishing shack. Clarke and Bellamy laugh before running.

Raven's boyfriend—sorry, "hated-work-acquaintance"—throws a wrench at him when Bellamy knocks over a box of screws. Raven cackles some "engineering _sucks_ " jibe.

Miller wanders up to them with pocketed hands, commenting that Bellamy has a place on the guard, if he wants it.

Clarke squeezes his hand.

They run into Jasper, who's selling _JobiNutters_ , as he calls them, and Bellamy considers buying some before his little stand gets shut down. It's practically an advertised illegal drug dealership after all.

Bellamy's contemplation takes too long, because Kane sits down in front of Jasper.

"Son, you can't…"

Clarke pulls him away to the next stop, and his shock has nearly faded. A community is forming here, full of people and life.

He forgets Peter's father as Clarke shows him all they worked so hard for, but he can't forget Peter's face.

..

The assembly goes well. Lexa is a reasonable woman, he thinks.

All the way in Polis' throne room, Clarke and him give their terms, which consist of, "let's just leave each other alone," but Clarke says it much more eloquently.

A scout will be sent monthly from Polis to discuss terms and relay messages and that is all.

As long as the Sky People stay on their side of the river, no war shall be had.

Clarke doesn't attempt to shake anyone's hand this time, but she does grab his as they trek home to the newly named Arkadia.

He lets himself question how her fingers tighten around his. What are they, exactly? Obviously, the sexual branch of _this_ has been postponed (ended? terminated?), but the way she smiles at him now; it's more open; it's free. He chalks that up to the fact that she isn't carrying a hundred souls through the mud anymore.

Bellamy may be arrogant, but not enough to think this girl's happiness relies on him.

Clarke smiles like he hasn't seen for years. Cocky and free, reminding him of when he was twelve and she was six. She's still there though—not the shell of a selfless, ignorant child—the Clarke he really knew. That little pull in her lips, that fire in her gaze, (those people she killed). It's all still there, just under the surface of her grey eyes.

He squeezes her fingers in his, pointing up at the sky to a constellation.

She gives him a sad smile.

It strikes him, because does she have a happy one? A mercy kill is above a demon, and beneath an angel, but with this person, a girl, just shy of eighteen, it fits right in. A mercy kill destroys a person, even a strong one, a flawed one.

It broke her, but it didn't end her.

She's here and she's Clarke. The princess in her left when those dropship doors fell. He will never stop calling her princess though, he thinks.

"Why do you know these things?" she asks him. The forest glows and sparkles and all they can do is look to the stars they've seen their whole lives. He prefers this perspective.

"O loved stories."

She looks at him for a second. "Did you?"

Maybe they're friends now, maybe they can be the best kind of friends, (maybe they can be more). He clutches her fingers.

"Yeah."

..

It's Bellamy's first time outside camp.

It's a cool day, and it shows in their breath, and numbing fingers. With those numbed fingers, he shoots a three-antlered deer. The bullet hole peaks from its neck, staining the tanned fur red. It cripples to the earth, twitching and rolling it's hooves.

The shot didn't kill the thing.

Tugging the sleeves of his Ark jacket, uncomfortably, Finn—ever peaceful—decides they should put it out of its misery.

Spacewalker holds out his knife, a thick-bottomed hunting blade. It's not Finn's responsibility, so Bellamy can do it.

Spacewalker will be Spacewalker.

(He's not that bad, but Bellamy doesn't like him. Maybe, it's because Finn makes Clarke laugh like he never could.

Maybe it's because Finn is so good, without even trying.)

Bellamy lowers himself to his knees, pressing into the grass. He takes the knife, piercing the buck's stomach after a moment's hesitation. His green sleeves stain red.

He grits his teeth, and Finn stares at him in horror, but a sympathetic kind. Finn never liked Bellamy either.

(Maybe it's because he thought Bellamy was so bad, without any guilt.

There's so much guilt though.)

Bellamy shrugs his hoodie-clad shoulders, trying to roll it off his back. It's food. He decides mercy killing isn't too hard, (when it's not on boys named Atom).

Mercy killing makes a person, a flawed one, one he wants to be.

He wipes the knife on the frosted grass, before standing. His breath falls out in a chilly cloud of relief. Bellamy gives the blade to Spacewalker by the handle.

Both of them grab an antler, each their own and sharing the one that curls from its forehead. They begin to drag it over crunchy, dewy grass.

"Thanks," Finn says after a couple minutes, grunting as he heaves the buck in time with Bellamy.

"What?"

Bellamy quirks a brow, slackening his grip on the antlers and stopping.

"You saved my life." The boy mutters, taking the break Bellamy granted. "Look it's not that hard. You spent a month on a table and it could've been me. Thanks."

Awkwardly, Bellamy nods at him, pulling at the buck again. It's a good size he reckons, a little small, but him and Finn could never carry anything bigger. Bellamy's too weak after not using his muscles and Spacewalker is a smaller guy.

They drag the guaranteed meal through the brush, leaving a trail of red in the green. "Thanks too," Bellamy mutters. Finn nods at him.

He doesn't explain passed that, and he wonders if Spacewalker got the message. Clarke always seems to.

Bellamy and Finn don't really get along all that well, but Kane makes the hunting parties. Bellamy doesn't really know how to feel about Kane. The man seems a bit fond of him though, in a mentor-y way. It's weird, having people give a shit about him.

Silence it is.

Until Finn's foot kicks into metal, nearly tripping, and drops his half of the deer. A glint appears under green moss and Bellamy nearly laughs.

How many secrets can one kid find? He's a tracker at heart.

Spacewalker lowers to his knees, brushing away the grime on the metal tin. A tiny silver padlock sits between them. It's a kiddy lock, one you used to see on diary covers. Excitement bubbles adorably in the teen as he begins scouring the moss for a key.

Bellamy just slams the butt of his rifle down on it, denting the red metal, and making the superficial lock crack to the dirt.

For a second, Finn stares at him. His hands fiddle with the remains of the padlock, opening the box with some force on the rusted hinges.

"A geocache," Bellamy mutters, staring at the contents.

"A what?" Grinning, Finn picks up a necklace that holds an anchor pendant. Bellamy barely looks at it, focusing on the rest. There is a newspaper clipping and a couple rocks.

A closed blade calls him, along with a plastic, butterfly thing.

Clarke could use a knife like that, he thinks. It's practical, unassuming, and has wooden accents. He picks it up, _click, click._ The metal h andle sits in his palm, the length of his wrist to his thumb. The blade is just as long.

It's a switchblade; she'd definitely like it.

It'd be weird to get her a gift though, wouldn't it? It was her birthday _last_ week, but that was last week. Would she care? There's really no denying how much he cares about her by now, but he doesn't want to make her uncomfortable.

Octavia would love the butterfly. He reaches his hand into the box, trading the blade for the butterfly. The plastic is an electric blue.

Finn's still looking at the necklace, watching it sway back and forth. "Think Clarke'll like it?"

Bellamy's stomach swallows the butterfly, slamming him with it.

He's an idiot.

Of course, she'd want a necklace. "How would I know?" Bitterness tastes familiar to him, like when he called her privileged, mocked her bravery, or blamed her for Murphy's hanging. There's a reason she liked Finn, and hated him.

(Effortless good, or regretful sin. It really isn't all that hard.)

"Good point."

He grits his teeth. Bellamy probably knows Clarke way better than Spacewalker, but that's just his pride.

He did just think she'd want a knife.

Bellamy looks back into the box petulantly. There's a notepad. Pocketing the butterfly, he takes it.

_"05/06/93; knife."_

_"Oct. 3, 2000: rock haha, I have nothing else on me!"_

_"12/04/03: butterfly fridge magnet, don't ask, cool rock!"_

_"July 5, 2041: newspaper of crazy terrorist lady."_

"We're supposed to leave a date and an object."

"What day is it?" Finn asks, reading over the newspaper. Bellamy shrugs.

"December-ish." So that's what he writes.

 _"December, 2150:"_ Bellamy looks at Finn for a moment. " _Bullet_."

They put everything they don't want back in the box, and he drops in the bullet. The knife challenges him for a moment.

It really is nice.

Bellamy grabs it before Finn closes the box, because why not? It doesn't have to be for Clarke. But if it was for her, hypothetically, she could like it. Bellamy thinks it's practical; she may not want it, but she might need it.

(Maybe, like him. Fuck, that's so stupid.)

It sits in his pocket, filled with possibilities as they drag the buck home.

..

He hasn't seen Clarke all day.

His fingers open and close the knife, staring at the dull blade. He'll need to hone it, before gifting it. If he gifts it, of course. He changed out of his green hoodie when they returned, buck in tow. A black long-sleeved shirt Clarke bought him sits on his shoulders, sleeves rolled up to eat supper.

The food sits on his plate. _Click, click._

He doesn't really want to eat it. He killed it after all, and he doesn't have the heart of a vegan, but he still killed it. The bread isn't bad though. _Click_ , he opens the knife.

Abby Griffin sits across from him, plate filled with deer she probably doesn't know he caught. She thinks he's useless.

It's a shocking development, her sitting across from him. She never comes near him and it doesn't escape his mind that the one time Clarke isn't here is the one time she approaches. The woman stares at him. It's Clarke's stare. Clarke isn't passive-aggressive like this though.

Clarke's blunt, could honestly hold a candle to Murphy.

He brings bread to his lips, chewing it slowly as it dries his mouth with questions. Her eyes fall on the knife, narrowing. He makes the smooth metal swallow the blade, running his finger over the accents.

"Are you with my daughter?" There it is, the questions she's been dying to ask for… three weeks(?).

"I've got her back." She screws her mouth at him. Her food is going to get cold if she doesn't eat it. He hopes it does.

"I meant romantically."

"I know." He fucked her a couple times though. If he knew this woman wouldn't pester Clarke, he'd tell her, just to piss her off.

On his plate rests cooked deer and stale bread, but he's completely lost his appetite and his desire to be respectable. He releases the blade, _click_ , and closes it, _click_ , ignoring her glare.

No, they aren't like that. Clarke doesn't see him that way.

"Well?" Prodding seems to be a Griffin thing. _Click_ out.

"No."

"Good. Stay away from her." That makes him freeze, looking up at her. _Click_ in.

"No." He could never imagine that now. She's wheedled her way into his life. Her eyes are blue and brave and he's never letting them go. She stays around him as long as she wants to.

"She's just a kid, my _daughter_ , and you are a criminal."

"Actually, she's an adult." He's a smartass and he knows it.

"A detail you would overlook either way. How old were all those girls at the dropship?" His mouth dries as he fumbles the closed knife, clattering it on the table. She's right . He _did_ overlook that detail. Multiple times, with girls barely older than O.

Clarke turned eighteen about a week ago, but he wasn't—it wasn't like that. He wasn't _preying_ on them. None of the girls were under seventeen, and he was going to _die_ when the Ark came down (until Clarke pardoned him).

It's still shameful, and all kinds of wrong. He has shitty excuses that are nowhere near good enough. He has an unquenchable urge to mention Jake Griffin, but he's better than that.

 _Better_. He's never been the one to say it to himself.

"Clarke's strong, and independent and can make her own choices." If he can't defend himself, he can defend her. "She's an adult, Abby."

That's when he sees the girl in question, wearing an over-sized charcoal hoodie. Hands stuffed into the pockets, she wanders into the eating area a little uneasily.

She's having a bad day; he can already tell.

He sees Finn follow in after her, gently touching her shoulder to which she pulls away. With the eyes of a kicked puppy, the boy pleads with her.

Clarke shakes her head; she's _exhausted._

Without excusing himself, he rises, pocketing his knife. Bellamy intercepts them. "Hey, go sit. I'll grab you a plate." She nods at him.

"I can do it." Bellamy looks at Spacewalker, seeing a necklace dangling between his fingers.

"Whatever." Bellamy puts his hands in his pockets as Finn takes off.

They turn to the tables and her mother is gone, he notes. She left when Clarke arrived. Clearly, bravery was not hereditary, but he never met her father.

"He won't leave me alone." Her laughter is dry, cold. "Suddenly, he's interested again, now that I'm not."

"You're not interested? He got you a necklace," he asks, genuinely surprised, perking his shoulders in interest.

She stares at him like he's grown two heads. "In Finn? Of course not."

"Oh."

They sit next to each other, thighs brushing lightly. He pulls his hands from his pockets. "It's a nice necklace, but then he gets the wrong idea and—" she sighs, rubbing her temples. Her eyes find his, taking food from his plate. "How was the trip? Finn said he found a _geocatch_." She pops the deer in her mouth with a raised brow.

"Cash. Geocache—"

"I know, Bellamy." She grins at him. Oh, they're making fun of Spacewalker, his favourite.

"It was good," he responds. "I left a bullet."

"Very nice."

"I wish I was more than bullets." Vulnerability always shines too easily with her, and it should bother him more than it does.

She recognizes his wallowing instantly, lowering her smile to a concerned pinch in her brows.

"You are." Her hand rests on his forearm. "You protect the people you care about with your life. You don't enjoy chaos, even if you thrive in it."

That's one thing he always appreciates about her. She may comfort him, but she doesn't lie to him, overlooking his flaws. She shines the light on them, accepting them for what they are.

"You like stories about ancient heroes and bloody wars." He flushes a bit. "You know who Oppenheimer is," she says.

"He really is a nerd," Octavia says.

His eyes jolt from the blonde to his sister. Bellamy's mood raises three octaves as she plants herself across from him, where Abby once was.

Lincoln sits next to Octavia, and Clarke's hand pulls away from his arm. His sister begins to chat aimlessly, moving her arms and not chewing her food, or when she does chew, she's talking. Lincoln doesn't seem to mind though; he seems entranced.

"I've got something for you."

Bellamy reaches his hand into his pocket, grazing the knife. He grabs the butterfly. He presents his hand, palm up, toward her. Octavia gives him a little smile, eyes sparking.

"Awesome." She nimbly takes the fridge magnet, showing Lincoln with animated arms.

She seems happy with Lincoln, and it makes his heart ache in the very best way. "See," Clarke whispers into his ear, leaning her chin on his shoulder, "more than a bullet."

Finn enters the canteen, trailing eyes over the crowds as he searches for Clarke.

"Let's scram," she whispers, jumping up. Her hands tug his and he follows her, barely taking the time to say goodbye to Octavia.

His sister only smirks at him, but before he can glare at the brat, Clarke pulls him out the door opposite of Finn. She's laughing. He loves when she laughs; her giggles stutter with every step of her run.

He's going to give the knife to her, he decides. They're friends (or something) and it's stupid to hide that. Who cares when her birthday was?

(He does, and he vows to remember it next year.)

..

They spend the rest of the night together, wandering around, doing nothing. It's nice, not having the world on their shoulders.

When the grey sky begins to pink, only slightly, Clarke leads him to her pond. It's just outside the architecture of camp, but still inside the wired fences. Cattails line the sides with purple flowers, swaying in the wind as she picks up a rock.

Clarke tosses the flat stone, and it gives an unsatisfying plop. Ripples lead out to the edge of the water as it sinks to the bottom.

She pouts, crossing her arms. "What are you doing?" He asks when she lowers herself to the rocks again, skimming her fingers over them.

"Skipping rocks."

"Doesn't look like it."

"Ass." She pushes hair behind her ear, glaring at him, small and cute.

He lowers himself, grabbing a flat, small stone. Over the years, he saw a couple movies where they did this.

It can't be that hard.

The slit of brown sediments _plops_ , much like hers, and she mocks him a bit before failing again herself. Okay, clearly he needs to figure out speed, velocity, and momentum.

Those all sound like the same principles to him. Raven would gasp in horror if he vocalized that opinion.

Well, maybe if he threw it like a discus, but without the dramatic body-spinning. He's read about it before. Odysseus won a discus toss a millenia or two ago according to Homer, after all.

He tries it with the next flat rock he finds, tucking his elbow and whipping his wrist. It bounces. Only once, but it does.

Silence, before—

"How'd you do that?" Clarke asks incredulously, frustration clear when her rock sinks to the bottom again.

"Magic," he teases, wiggling his fingers.

Clarke tries to copy him, struggling to translate his form into her own dominant hand. She awkwardly bends her elbow as she releases the stone. "Show me." She beckons him with her fingers, picking up another rock.

Bellamy moves into her space, chest to back, but not quite touching. He grasps her left wrist, leading her through his new skill. "Like this, and then—perfect." His focus on her arm is impressive, slowly moving his own along with hers.

Then, he breathes in, remembering the time he taught her to shoot a gun, the first time she got under his skin like no one ever had. He remembers how embarrassingly flustered he became.

"...Bellamy?"

"Huh?" _Shit_. "Oh yeah, no you're good." _Fuck_. Again? He's had _sex_ before, lots ( _with her,_ even), but just being in her proximity makes him lose his place he's trying to read a book underwater.

He takes a step back, encouraging her to throw with a wave of his arms. She huffs a breath. Doing exactly as he instructed, she tosses the rock. It plops.

"Show me again."

He gulps, stepping forward. He can do this; he can. Just grab her wrist, pull it back. Easy. Her shoulder blades brush his chest, pressing her thighs to his when he flicks her wrist. _Easy_.

He can do this.

She tenses, tentatively asking, "what's in your pants?"

His face pales. It would be sickeningly embarrassing if he got hard teaching her to throw rocks. He didn't though, so he pulls away in confusion, eyebrows scrunching.

"Oh, it's a knife!" Laughing, Bellamy removes the switchblade from his pocket as she turns to him. She raises a brow at him, taking the closed knife into her fingers.

 _Shit_. What does he do now? "Where'd you get this?"

"Geo-catch." Her eyes raise to his, lips pulling up. She thumbs along the edges of the knife.

"You said it was a knife." He makes sure she's holding it safely when he presses the button. _Click_. The dull blade appears and Clarke grins down at it, pushing the button again. "Cool."

He must have been distracted by how excited she was, because he says, "it was for you." _Click_. Her eyes meet his with fire, and god, he's glad it's there.

"What?"

"I-don't-know." The words blend together his rush. Smooth. "What'd you think it was, Princess?" She flushes bright red, ducking her chin. Making fun of her will really help (he's an idiot). _Click. Click._ She nervously fidgets the knife.

"You're an ass." He smirks, shaking his head, because technically she didn't answer the question. "Is it still for me?" _Click_. He notices the way her hands shake when she asks.

"If that's what you want." Whatever the hell she wants, for the rest of his life, it seems.

She steps forward, bringing her lips to his cheek, because she's brave like that, because she trusts him with something like that.

Trusts him.

Clarke trusts him, and seemingly from the moment he didn't drop her. She's known who he was for so long, or maybe, that wasn't who he was. Maybe, Clarke Griffin knew who he wanted to be: someone his mother was proud of, someone his sister could look to, someone he could stop hating.

She saw his soul before he knew it was there.

Clarke steps back and he's left breathless, like he sprinted a marathon. Her eyes are blue and beautiful (he should tell her she's beautiful, maybe) and her lips look soft.

Bellamy wonders if they still are. He wouldn't know anymore. It just felt so off limits since leaving the dropship.

She isn't grieving. He isn't grieving. Responsibility doesn't crush them, and they don't need to relieve stress, but she's so pretty, with her strong eyes and near permanent grimness that's only now beginning to fade into hesitant smiles.

Fuck it.

He presses his lips to hers, and yes, they are soft. She squeaks, gasping flat-footed on the grass. A thump hits his shoe, sending a dull throb up his leg. He ignores it, bending his body a little crookedly.

For a scary three seconds, she doesn't kiss him back.

His hands clench at his sides with nerves. He's throwing himself out there for the first time, and not when they're arguing like he'd always imagined he would. It's because he wants to kiss her, has for so long, and he's done being scared, because even if Clarke isn't in the same place as him, she'd never just pick up and leave.

He trusts that.

 _Please_ , kiss him back, or at least, pull away. Make a choice so he doesn't have to stand there, bent like a duck, kissing a statue. He bites her lip in invitation (desperation). She responds, finally, pushing up on her toes, relieving his zig-zagged neck. Her fingers meet his nape, biting his bottom lip in return. The digits brush over an ugly scar, tinted white.

He groans. His hands rest on her hips, pulling her somehow closer.

Her chin ducks suddenly, pressing her forehead into his lips. Bellamy's eyes widen at the change, clenching his hands on her waist.

Clarke's nails scrape the scar with a huff. His stomach plummets in dread. His lips open against her crown. _They aren't that gross,_ he wants to say, but it's a lie.

Bellamy has seen them in the mirror, rusty and milky all at once.

The burns erased so many of his freckles, replacing them with a brand he will never escape.

He freezes when she pulls out of his arms, feeling utterly rejected. Clarke moves behind him, picking up his loose shirt, making him cringe and screw his eyes shut. He trusts her; he does, but what if—?

"I'm sorry." Shards of glass have wrecked her throat, thickening her voice. She trails her fingers up his spine, under his shirt. "I'm _so sorry."_ What? Why is she sorry? "I did this to you," she chokes. "I-"

He stares forward at the buildings of they're home, stacked and grey-pink, blending with the sky. _She's sorry._ Bellamy reaches back, grabbing for her. By her wrist, he pulls her in front of him.

She's sorry.

He rests his hands on her heavy, burdened shoulders. Her eyes water up at him, strong and wet with her sins and the sins of everyone else, because Clarke can't let people have mistakes.

Demons don't feel regret, and angels have nothing to regret. People do both. She's one beautiful person.

He tries something, because these words changed his life. "If you need forgiveness." Her eyes flicker at him in recognition. "I'll give that to you."

She collapses into him.

He freezes, for half a second before wrapping his arms around her a little tighter than he should for someone who's only her friend (he did just kiss her). Clarke cries, sobbing into his shoulder. Her fingers scale his back, lightly, in terror.

Not because they're ugly, but because it's her _fault_.

"You're forgiven, okay?" He's so done with her bearing all this shit for him. She nods, but he can tell it's insincere.

His hand curls around her ear, and his other grabs her elbow. Bellamy presses his lips to hers again, sweetly, without intention. Forgiven. The wind blows through, making her shiver in his arms. This is probably their last nice day before winter commits itself, and he's going to make it worth it.

He pulls back, breathing a little shallow as she lifts her guilty gaze to his, guilty but accepting. His thumb brushes under her eye.

"You did what you had to. I forgive you."

She only smiles—tiny, barely peeking out, but trying—before pressing her lips to his chin dimple, and trailing them down his neck.

She makes him want to be human, do all the things he never thought he could. He still has a soul to give.

He'll give it and let her break it.

"Stay with me tonight." It's a quiet statement, or maybe a plea. He pulls at loops of her jeans for distraction, "the whole night, not just sex." The last word comes out a whisper, nearly nervous but as he looks into her eyes, sea blue surrounded by a navy ring. He sees fire and something else, something passionate.

She kisses him again, full of promises. Backing away, she lowers to the ground. Clarke pockets the knife in her hoodie, grabbing a rock.

She whips it and it plops, but she scoffs without care.

"Sex too," she says. He laughs.

Clarke snatches his wrist, dragging him through camp. Every couple of seconds, they randomly steal kisses from one another. He presses one to her brow outside the canteen, and she full-on assaults his mouth with hers in front of Raven and her (now) boyfriend's (Wick, Bellamy had learned, but since his head still has a wrench-shaped indent, he refuses to acknowledge him) shop, much to the mechanics cheering. Clarke tries to pull away, but Bellamy pulls her in, fuelled by Raven's laughter.

She drags him along, filtering through thin crowds of former-delinquents and their families. The sky grows orange, nearly yellow, as the clouds purple, but he doesn't look.

When they're a couple of steps from his tent, he halts, tugging her wrist. She swirls into his chest as he picks her up by the thighs, holding her high on his hips, so high that she's looking down on him.

Her elbows bend around his neck as he kisses her, slowly taking the final steps to his tent.

He forgot there were other people at camp; Jasper screams and gossip erupts, but he doesn't care. They push through the flap, and a few steps later he drops her on his bed.

The bounce makes her gift fall out of her hoodie's centre pocket. Without a beat, she almost throws it on his bedside before grabbing his neck, and dragging him down into her oblivion.

They kiss and they squirm for minutes, forcing their bodies onto one another.

She tugs his long-sleeve over his shoulders.

Bellamy abuses her jeans, using the loops to tug them down her legs. He stands above her, kissing his way up her beautiful, hair-covered legs.

Her fingers press into his back as she shutters. He pushes the hem of her hoodie up to her breasts, lips pulsing against her revealed stomach.

"It's going to scar," she whispers, pushing up on her elbows. The fabric tumbles back down, covering her navel.

"It did." He kisses the dark patches of her grey panties, and she whimpers.

Her eyes are sad, deep, and he hates seeing it, so he pushes his head under her hoodie, three sizes too big.

His lips trail from her navel to her sports bra, pushing his hand underneath it to pinch her nipples. She gasps, bucking into his stomach.

Then, his eyes adjust to the dim glow of his tent as she rips the garment over her head, tangling her hair.

His chin presses below her collar lightly. Clarke's fingers loiter over his scarred shoulders, and down his arms. He rises, resting between her legs. Bellamy's jeans lightly grind into her underwear.

Her fingers keep dancing.

Their cores create a slow, sensual friction as they hold their stare, bobbing back and forth into one another. He grabs her elbows, pushing her arms away from his back because he hates that look on her face.

It's the _all-my-fault_ look, and he wants it to burn under the pleasure.

"For the rest of your life," her regrets shine in her watery eyes, "it'll scar."

Suddenly, the tent darkens with the sky, leaving Clarke to breathe beneath him. He pulls away for a moment, rolling her over and onto her knees.

Sitting her up, back to his chest, he pushes his hands under her bra, squeezing as she gasps. He pulls her sports bra over her head with one hand while the other cranks her nipples.

"You did what you had to," he murmurs, kissing her neck and massaging her breasts.

"But—" he pushes her face first into the mattress, forcing her shoulders down with a frown on his face. His fingers slink down her spine, dipping into each bump and the dimples above her ass. Clarke pushes up on her elbows, locking them.

She shivers, and he begins tugging down her panties. His fingers prod her entrance, before sinking two in, soaked and trembling.

She mewls, collapsing into his sheets. "How long's it been, Princess?" His answer is a gasp when he curls his fingers, bringing his other hand beneath her to rub her clit. She steadily sways back and forth and back, reaching for the pleasure.

Her walls begin trembling but she doesn't come. Clarke's hand wraps around his thrusting one, but doesn't stop the one on her clit as it slows. She rolls over again, looking up at him with drool on her chin and flushing cheeks.

"We're not doing that again." Her hands trail down his chest. "I don't want this to be about making me feel better." Her hands unbutton his jeans, pushing them down with his boxers and he kicks them off. "This is about us." Bellamy and Clarke. _Us_.

She takes him in her hands, thumbing his slit. He bites his lip as she pumps a couple times. Clarke pulls his hips forward.

He grunts as he watches his thickness disappear into her soaking, red cunt. It swallows him, and it takes him a moment of staring at her to realize, yeah, he can move.

He begins a slow grind, grunting and moaning quietly, because they're in a tent; they're fucking in a tent. Her hands pull his face to hers, biting his lip and running her fingers down the scars on his back.

She palms them, moaning into his ear how she's so very sorry and he thrusts hard, telling her it's forgiven and it nearly slips that he loves her.

Holy fuck, he _loves_ her. _When—where?_ She gasps as his thumb brushes her clit, moaning when he bites her collar. This isn't just fucking, he decides, because he fucking loves her and they're holding each other's hand as they kiss moans into each other's souls. Because he asked her to stay in between grunting thrusts, and he can't decide if her " _yes, yes, yes."_ Was in response to his words or the way he twisted his cock inside of her.

This is their first time, their real one, emotionally anyway.

The one where they're honest with one another, or almost. He won't tell her he loves her, but it's there between the lines of his mine-fielded conscience.

He has no idea what she's thinking, but she's here, caressing the scars she branded on him. " _Clarke was here,"_ the brands say, curling over his spine; she squeaks through his kiss as he throws her leg over his shoulder. She keeps squeaking—this position is so _fucking_ good—hands falling away from him to lie unresponsive at her sides. Clarke twitches abruptly, eyes flaring; she comes in a panic, spasming, threading her fingers into his hair as she pushes her tongue into his mouth to silence her cries.

With one last grind, her leg falls off his shoulder and he erupts into her, leaving his soul in her heart. He trembles above her, holding his weight on his elbows.

"I- I," _love you._ He trusts her, needs her, loves her, loves her; he just isn't ready to. Whatever they just did, he's never done that before.

 _This is about us._ Him and Clarke.

Her fingers whisper over his back, peaking the mountains, kissing the valleys.

"You're beautiful," he settles on, dropping his head into her shoulder.

..

He wakes up covered in scars.

The tent glows with the morning dew. It lights up his sheets and her hair. His fingers reach out to find Clarke Griffin, breathing lightly. They brush her spine, and she rolls over to face him.

"Hey," she whispers.

"Hey."

She presses her lips to his. He's proud to say it doesn't shock him. A jacket mocks him from across the room, and a switchblade grins on his bedside next to her father's watch.

He doesn't exactly hate himself, and he definitely doesn't love himself but he's getting there.

"Your mom's gonna love these," he teases, trailing his fingers over the bruises littering her neck. She pushes him over, settling in his lap.

"I don't care."

..

Nearly a year passes, and it's soon to be Unity Day. A new Unity Day, one for the alliance with the Coalition.

November 30th every year, snow covered and chilly, they'll celebrate.

It's November 29th, and Clarke has been animated all week, soaking in the idea of Trikru celebrating with them. Monty will be making his moonshine, and since Bellamy and Clarke went to the commander without talking to the council, they're going to be drinking all night.

"They're called fireworks," Clarke tells him as they walk across Arkadia to Raven's shop.

She describes these explosions in the sky to him and he has to admit, they sound exciting.

When they get to Reyes-Wick Incorporated—as the nerds like to call it—a wrench nearly blows his head off.

"Hey Griffin! Fuck you, Blake," Wick grumbles, stalking across the room with a box in his hand.

"Hey, Clarke," Raven says, standing up from some rusted vehicle.

She wipes her hands as she walks over to them. Her limp is so much better now, and it makes Bellamy happy to see. She steps around stains, and with oil stained hands, she tightens her ponytail.

"How're the fireworks going?" Bellamy asks.

She lifts a brow at Clarke. "I thought they were gonna be a surprise."

"I had to tell _someone_ ," Clarke defends, crossing her arms. "'Sides, he's gonna help us set them off."

Raven shrugs, before signalling her hand as a 'follow me'. She tells them how they work, what to light, and how far back they need to be.

"Goddamn mechanics," Wick goads from across the room.

Raven scowls, setting a hand on her hip. "Keep talking like that, and no sex for a month."

Clarke laughs at Wick's pained scowl, and Bellamy wants to goad him but he's kind of scared Clarke will get the same idea.

..

They run from the fireworks. He hears a devastating _pop pop pop_. Then it's like sprinkles shining in the sky.

"Happy Unity Day!" Clarke yells, laughing.

Her hair is collapsing from that stupid crown and she pushes on her toes to kiss his cheek.

Bellamy forgets how many cups they are into moonshine but he's really done caring. They aren't wasted per say, but he feels a warmth in his stomach that coils when she touches him.

 _Pop pop pop._ They really are beautiful, clear skies and shimmering. The crowds cheer, Skaikru and Trikru alike, enjoy the fire flying in the ink. Bellamy pulls Clarke into his side, kissing her temple with a sigh.

"I love you," she says.

His body tightens instantly, questioning whether or not he's hearing things.

The warmth in his belly melts into a sweet honey as Bellamy looks into her eyes. They are stormy.

Her arms are crossed and it's so much like that first time she kissed him. Unsure and ready. The fireworks crackle, gold and red.

Of course, Clarke said it first, because he's a coward, and she's his brave, brave princess.

"I love you, too."

..

.

.

.

**NOW**

"Welcome to Bardo, Mr. Blake."

Bellamy's eyes blur, blinking away his struggles. He- they- what? The room is white, and the man in the lab coat holds a grin on rotting teeth.

"Who is Clarke Griffin?"

Bellamy shakes his head. His hands are strapped down, but he pulls anyway. "No one," he says. "I don't know what you're talking about."

The man turns, picking up a needle. "That's fine," he says. "Let's go again."

..

.


	2. chess and alcohol

_**time of diversion:** _

_**17:23:05** _

_**March 31, 2150** _

_**(AKA Praimfaya)** _

_**codename:** _

_**bellamy blake** _

_**ii. to the hundred, (and every shitty thing we did for them.)** _

He thought it'd happen after he told her he loved her.

Anywhere, or anyplace. Maybe in the woods, or in Arkadia, or even in that goddamn bunker (until she locked Octavia out and he let her in, anyway).

Never in space though; that location never quite crossed his mind.

It's been nearly seven months on the Ring and everyone has adjusted fine, mostly.

Raven and Echo spar: Monty and Harper tamper with their algae. Murphy and Emori are off—Bellamy doesn't want to think about what they're doing.

This is his life now: no Octavia, no hundred (no responsibility), surrounded by mismatched misfits and outcasts.

And Clarke, who's on her stomach, drawing, in the midst of their friends.

Clarke is bright as the stars out the window.

It's not a good thing. The stars flicker and die; the stars emit the faintest of glows. Her eyes rise from her sketch, meeting his gaze for an unguarded second. She has that haunted look on her face again, always.

They've committed too many massacres to live a happily ever after, haven't they?

His gaze traces the hairs that scatter and frame her pale face, down her pink t-shirt and dark shorts. She drops her eyes to focus intently on her sketchbook, gnawing her lip. He's worried it'll bleed.

He didn't even know she loved to draw before they all returned to space.

Sure, she made him a map or two on fraying parchments, but he'd never seen the extent of it, never saw her bite her tongue and blend lead with her thumb, staining her forearms and the little hairs on them with charcoal.

Bellamy wants to know those things about her, all of them.

The warmth that grows in his stomach as he watches her is familiar by now. Her drawing is of Jasper, he realizes. He can tell by the scruffy hair, and the goggles atop his head: it's Jasper before he and Clarke broke him, holding a gun to sanity.

Her hands shake a little. She sits back on her palms.

Trauma is the proverb in her shoulders, telling the tales of all she's killed, and it breaks his heart. Cleaves it. Her eyes blink harshly, trying not to fall apart in front of all their friends.

She rips the drawing from the book, cradling it in her lap.

Clarke crosses her legs, curling in her shoulders. She's considering giving it to Monty. Bellamy can tell by her furtive glances and fiddling fingers as they thumb the manilla. It wrinkles.

She breathes out slowly, ripping the smiling Jasper right down the middle, because _he doesn't exist anymore._ He's dead, _dead_ , because they killed Maya, _together_.

They killed _him_.

(And maybe, it wasn't their fault. Maybe, it was the only choice, but they're still _dead_.)

Bellamy misses the time before all that, and he wishes he could have prevented it all.

He never thought he'd miss the dropship; he misses the simplicity, he thinks, the _before_ aspect. Before Mount Weather, before the cullings, before that army he killed in grief.

Before the mistakes, when she hated him, and he hated who he thought she was.

They both bargain with their sins daily on the search for redemption, finding catharsis one way or another: Clarke draws, Bellamy reads. Everyone up here does something. Murphy goads, Monty speaks of "doing better", Harper nurtures, Raven fixes, Emori learns new things, and Echo spars with anyone willing.

They're all sad and broken, unable to cope and pretending everything is okay. He sees a tear drip down her face. Her thumb wipes it away.

He's had enough. Together in everything.

Rising from the table, he decides he has been a creepy stalker long enough. Bellamy ambles his way over to her as casually as he can, trying not to attract their makeshift family. He stuffs his hands in his sweats.

He hates it when people see him break down, and he knows Clarke does too.

Bellamy remembers how embarrassed he felt as he sat next to her against that tree, _crying_ his sins into her listening eyes. Of course, she never made a joke out of it; she told him everything he needed, making herself vulnerable instead.

She says such poignant things like they're _nothing_.

(" _I need you._ " He could've laughed in her face, scoffed at the notion. All they did was pester each other, then.

He could've.)

Harper glances up from Monty, flitting her gaze from him to Clarke, before giving him a small smile. She always knew too much, never saying a thing.

Clarke holds the pieces of her sketch in her lap, bare legs bouncing in habitual anxiety. He sits down crisscrossed beside her and she startles. Bellamy doesn't speak, doesn't prod. He's just _there_ , at her side, like he always will be, because that's what they do.

The metal of the floor is cold on his feet. He forces himself to feel the sensation, hunching over like an old veteran with too many kills to count.

"I miss him," she whispers thickly.

Jobi nuts and suicidal happenstances were most of the Jasper he knew, but still:

"Me too."

Bellamy remembers Jasper's palm pushing into his cheek crudely, remembers his own anger, quick and gone. (Back at the dropship, he would've punched Jasper, so maybe he doesn't miss it as much, maybe, he only misses the Clarke-unbroken, the Clarke-so-hopeful.)

That was the Jasper he knew.

But, he also remembers pretending not to enjoy himself while they all sang along to Jasper's disgusting music. Clarke wasn't there for that part of Jasper, that peaceful three months—Bellamy wasn't at peace either, not without her. He tried to be because it was only _Clarke Griffin,_ only the _Ark's Princess_ , only a girl he barely knew for two months.

(But… they said _together_ , they said- and she just _left_.)

She's never had a break until now.

"I miss him so much," she murmurs, trailing her fingers over the goggles. It smudges, staining her fingers like blood. She really could've used that three months.

(Sometimes, he wishes she stayed. All the time, he wishes he was enough to make her stay.)

Bellamy wonders what other kinds of shitty music Jasper would've found if he came with Monty and Harper, if he decided that they were enough.

(It seems Bellamy is never enough to make anyone stay.)

He remembers the adorable crush Jasper had on Octavia, and how Clarke told him not to worry about it when he eyed them a little harshly (because somehow, she knew), so harshly he missed how a certain Grounder left a path of lilies.

(He misses the dropship, and maybe, it's the people he misses, the hundred. Before the mistake that got Lincoln killed.)

He remembers how the shaggy-haired boy hugged him with abandon after Bellamy saved him. (He remembers wishing he was brave enough to hug people like that.) He remembers how he didn't hug Jasper back. Bellamy remembers how, the last time they hugged, he was the one struggling to let go. Even if the Jasper he knew was a broken fragment of the sweet boy he used to be, he was _real_ , and he was _there_ , and Bellamy will never forget him, or the hundred.

They were all so real. Children. Guilty children, doing the dirty work.

The drawing sits in front of them, in two jagged pieces atop her sketchbook, and what was it Kane used to say to him, (to all the potential Bellamy didn't think he had)?

_You turn the page._

Bellamy does it for her, sliding a blank, new, manila page along the rings. The page is rough in texture. Her teary eyes follow his hands, leading up his arms to his eyes.

Clarke nods tensely, huffing a breath, and he knows she's motivating herself, pushing through.

Bellamy learned all her little ticks. He can tell when she's about to have a breakdown from across the room, can tell when she's angry, when she's sad, when she needs him. He pulls one knee to his chest and stretches the other, preparing to spend his next fragment of life at her side (or the rest of it). The air is stale. Her eyes are blue, grey or green. His heart is on the verge of snapping in half like a stick over a knee. These are all facts.

Now that they have the time, he can truly learn her.

All the stupid, meaningless things. She shrugs her shoulders; they crack and her eyes harden, erasing any fear or pain.

_Turn the page._

Her charcoals hit the paper, and a new world forms before him.

(She draws them all: Wells, Charlotte, her father, her mother, and more, and more. She draws a child in the woods, scary looking with a spear.

"Who's that?" He sits next to her, and never even considers leaving.

"Madi." She presses a pencil marked 6B into the hair.

"Who's Madi?" His heart pangs for an unknown reason.

Her hand freezes. "I… don't know." Clarke moves on to the next drawing, like it never happened. He's chilled to the bone. Who _is_ Madi, and why does he get the unshakable feeling that she's dead?)

When Clarke draws Octavia, she rips out the page for him. When she draws Lincoln, he does it for her. Bellamy places the pages together because that's where they belong. Two people, unwanted by their homes—one for merely existing, the other, for appreciating the role of all that exists—meeting in the middle. That was Lincoln and Octavia.

(Bellamy broke that.)

Hours pass and Harper makes them some algae tea, kind and considerate in her understated way. Echo brings it to them though, because no one who knew these people can stomach these papers.

(Then, she draws the people she— _they_ —killed: Maya, Dante, Atom, Finn, Lexa and then Lexa again.

"You didn't kill Lexa."

"Yes, I did." He doesn't ask what she means. Maybe, it's like how he didn't kill Lincoln, didn't pull that trigger, but the gun was there because of him.

Or maybe it's not, he doesn't know, doesn't ask.

She draws them, and she draws them, because it's how she copes, because they're all fucking dead and they never got a burial. All these people are dead, yet the earth keeps spinning out their window, like they never mattered. They did, even passed their final journey to the ground. They did.

She draws the living too, in between the margins. She even draws him once.)

He doesn't leave her side, not for the entire night. Their friends go to bed, leaving them there on the floor, with numbed legs, and sore joints. She cries as she draws, with no bravado or dramatics. Sitting there, legs crossed, her tears fall, slip down her face, glowing in the sun's glare over that ever-spinning earth in soundless agony.

He doesn't leave, never will.

When she inevitably passes out, he carries her to bed, tears pouring over that have been waiting all night.

..

The next morning, he is rudely awakened by a bang on his door.

His eyes shoot open. Emotional exhaustion shows in the bags under them. His door slides open, lighting up the dust particles as Clarke makes her way inside. He groans, tossing his sheets over his head.

She's a child, a goddamn child.

It's 3:46 AM, and she's pestering him. Her hands grasp his sheets and tug like he's a dog on a leash. He's glad he wore a shirt to bed last night.

"I'm giving you time to get dressed." She tugs again and he nearly tumbles out of bed.

"Wow, thanks Princess, so considerate," he grumbles, sitting up. Bellamy pushes his way out of bed, scavenging for yesterday's sweatpants. Clarke's eyes ridicule him, tracing the bed head he knows he wears.

He pulls on a pair, turning to her in exasperation.

"I got something to show you."

Her hand clasps on his as she drags him out the door and through the corridors like a blind man. With the way he stumbles behind her, he just might be. She leads him to an old cell. Her cell, he realizes, the one she was given in solitary.

It's spattered in earth, trees, animals, from floor to ceiling.

"I spent a year here." Bellamy wanders to her old mattress, and sits down. It's as comfortable as cardboard. Her voice is warm and sad, and it doesn't stop. She begins sharing stories of Wells, her father, and their lives on the Ark. He watches her. Clarke traces her finger over every drawing, beginning new ones.

Clarke tells him about how a guard used to sneak her charcoals. Bellamy might've known that guard.

He wishes he'd known her, on the Ark. He would've hated her, and she wouldn't have cared, but Bellamy likes to pretend they would've been friends, pretend he would've talked to her. (He likes to pretend a lot of things.)

She smiles at him sadly. Bellamy rises from her cardboard, stepping toward her; her eyes water as he moves her into his arms. For a moment, she resists the comfort, before diving in. Her arms carve around his body, pressing into his soul.

"Clarke…" His concern is potent, crawling along the crown of her hair in the husk of his voice.

"I miss them," she whispers into his shoulder, hands locking behind him. He anchors her, keeping her from the bottom of her guilt. "I-" she chokes, pushing her face into his chest, further and further.

"I've got you," he says into her hair as the sun glares through the window.

"I know," she murmurs.

Something he learns after three months in space: Clarke is the kind of person to wake him up at 3:46 AM to show him something.

Something he already knew: she was staring at her ceiling for hours, contemplating whether she should, because she doesn't want to burden people.

Something he loves: she came to him anyway, knowing he'd listen, even three hours passed midnight.

..

Learning her means that she learns him too.

His love for history reveals itself in the stories he tells her randomly. Some of Odysseus, many of Augustus and a few of Sir Francis Drake, just for some spice.

(Bellamy never notices how much she listened until she shows up at his door.)

He is reading _The Iliad_ on his bed, dreading the _one-year-in-space_ hurrah Monty insisted on. The book he holds is a different copy than the one Gina gifted him, but the novel holds a place in his heart, even creased and battered.

His door slides open, startling him into dropping the book on his chest. Her silhouette greets him, surrounded by blinding hallway lights.

She saunters into his room like it's hers, stopping beside him.

Clarke's blue eyes shimmer at him in excitement, a dilapidated book clutched to her chest. Sitting up, he folds his page and places the book on his bedside. He faces her, absorbing her excitement. Clarke thrusts the novel into his hands, nearly knocking the breath out of him with the force.

_The Histories._

Bellamy holds the new classic in uncalloused hands, feeling the weight of it on his fingers. Over this last year in space, he's found many novels in between the cracks in the walls. He grins, lifting his eyes to her. He hasn't read this one.

"Do you like it?" She almost sounds nervous, but she trusts him too much for that.

He stands up to meet her, placing _The Histories_ atop _The Iliad._ "Of course I do, Princess."

Her answering beam is enough to lift the weight of a mountain, and surely enough to make him look forward to their celebration tonight.

Clarke wraps him into a light hug, pushing her arms under his, and without hesitating, he nuzzles his nose into her wavy hair. He loves her hugs. Hugging has become quite the common thing between, after he finally initiated one on the ground, clad in radiation suits. Before that, it was always Clarke pulling him into her arms, (before that, it wasn't anyone, because Bellamy didn't initiate hugs; before Clarke, he'd only been hugged by three people. His mother, Octavia, and Jasper.)

There are so many hugs he wishes he'd given people.

"Happy one year in space," she murmurs sadly into his shoulder, before pulling back. His hands cup her elbows. _Happy_ , he could laugh. Bellamy blinks open his eyes, dazed.

"Let's go join the others," she says, not looking forward to it either.

..

Strip poker was Murphy's idea, and it was a good one, drunk Bellamy thinks.

They all sit in a circle on the floor, in various states of undress. Raven and Emori opted out to work on their radio across the room, but everyone else is somewhere between drunk and wasted.

Bellamy is in the former: a fun little buzz presses at his temples.

He's down to his muscle shirt, socks and boxers, doing better than everyone but Echo.

Murphy, on his right, is in his boxers and shirt, dealing two cards to everyone. He laughs. Everyone puts their ante—mandatory bet—into the middle.

Clarke is on Bellamy's left, in… his shirt, he realizes, the one he stripped two rounds ago. When did she even put it on? It's white, unbuttoned, alluding to her sports bra and panties underneath. One sock rests on her left foot.

Bellamy sips his moonshine—courtesy of Monty Green—and picks up his cards. Two kings, diamond and heart. Bellamy knocks his hand on the metal floor, checking, essentially a pass with no bet. Clarke folds her cards, taking off her sock.

"Quitting?" Bellamy smirks at her, leaning over condescendingly. She throws it at him with a glare. He sticks out his tongue.

Harper bets a bolt, and Monty—well, Monty's passed out naked, head resting in her lap and is gracefully covered by his shirt. Poor, poor Monty.

Echo meets her bet, not a twitch on her face. Murphy meets it too, smirking arrogantly. He's trying to seem like he has a good hand, but it's shit. Murphy always does the opposite of how he wants to be perceived.

Bellamy goes for another sip from his cup, but Clarke steals it from his lips, chugging it back.

Before he can be angry with her, the drink is slammed down with a clank on the steel floor. A pink flush flurries over her drunken features, distracting him greatly. Clarke moves closer to him, playing with stray strings on his shirt.

Come on, Clarke; he's trying to _win_ here.

Echo coughs at him, breaking him from his stupor. Features pained, he slides forward one of his bolts.

It's a slowly diminishing pile.

Murphy places the flop, five cards in a line, face-down, flipping the first three: two, three, six. Harper bites her lip to hide her smile; Murphy pretends to be upset. He probably has an ace and four, or something.

Clarke brushes her fingers down his spine, moving closer to him to look at his cards. Her bare legs challenge him, daring him to steal a glance. He swallows, (trying to _win_ ) raising two bolts without thinking.

His pair of kings won't do him much without a brain.

Murphy flips the next card, queen of diamonds. Bellamy barely even notices the game as—he thinks Harper folds, taking off her shirt?—Clarke throws her feet across his lap, moving closer (how? how is she _closer_?) Why is nobody noticing this _harassment_ , or caring?

In fact, Raven winks at him, tinkering her radio. Murphy flips the last card. It's another two.

He tries to read them: two, three, six, Queen, two. Bellamy can't even process the suit.

 _Pair of kings,_ that's good right? _Clarke, stop._ She presses a kiss to his neck. _Two pairs._

Echo—after a round of being taught how—is alarmingly good at this game. Bellamy looks at her stone-cold features, not a tell in sight. Clarke pushes her shin to his groin softly, whispering nothings in his ear. He raises his bid. Like a dumbass.

Bellamy got Echo last round, and pure luck can happen twice, right?

Playing strip-poker with a hardened, Azgeda spy is never a good idea. She has a straight: four and five with the two, three, six. Clarke leans her head on his shoulder, biting her lip. His face flushes. It's hidden well by his complexion. At least she's trying to hold in her laughter as he sets down his pitiful pair of kings.

"What's it gonna be, Bellamy?" Murphy teases, taking off his shirt. Emori whistles. Raven glances away, flushing.

"His sock?" Harper murmurs, kind like she always is. She sits confidently in her bra and pants, legs crossed, brushing her fingers through poor Monty's hair. Monty mewls.

Clarke—still practically in his lap—grabs his tattered muscle-tee and starts tugging. "His shirt," she states like he has no say in the matter. She's drunk and happy. Bellamy wishes they didn't have to correlate.

"Dang, Griffin's bossy," Murphy laughs, shuffling the cards.

Bellamy takes in her quirking lips, sparkling eyes and flushing cheeks. She's in _his_ lap. She's in _his_ shirt. Her brows wiggle at him daringly. God, she looks happy.

Who is he to tell her no?

Bellamy rips it over his head, tossing it across the room. Hoots resonate from Raven and Emori. Even Murphy gives him a wink.

"Victory is sweet," Echo gloats, taking a swig of her drink.

Bellamy's face goes red at the catcalling. He _did_ not think that through, but Clarke presses her lips to his neck when she senses his tension. "Relax."

And he does, into her mouth, casually placing his hand on the small of her back.

Murphy slaps the deck down, splattering a few cards. "I'm getting more drinks!" He hops up.

"Yeah, I'm tired of strip poker," Harper adds, poking Monty who whines in defeat. "Put some pants on, Green Machine."

"Oh get me shirtless then we quit?" Bellamy leans back, mock-offended.

"Added bonus." Clarke rises, one foot between his thighs. Bellamy tries not to trace her legs with his eyes, but the edges of her red underwear trap his focus. "Let's get that drink." He blinks up at her, caught. Clarke ruffles his curls with affection, tugging a little in tease. She smiles down at him.

 _Get that drink;_ that was years ago by now. They never quite did, did they?

She leans over him, open shirt tickling his cheek. Suggestion simmers in her gaze, but also a warmth akin to burning coals. He wants to curl up next to it like he was stuck in a blizzard. His finger trails up her calf, behind her knee and down to her ankle between his legs, edging the goosebumps. He kisses her outer thigh sweetly, pretending he's drunk enough to do so.

(He's so very good at pretending.)

She pulls him to his feet, leaning back on her heels as he stumbles up. When they catch themselves, fingers locked, he swears the Ring pauses it's orbit.

Her eyes crinkle, and she squeezes their fingers.

She has a little bit of green in her eyes, he thinks, but maybe he should get a little closer and find out if it's true. Leaning into him, her lips barely brush the corner of his mouth. He tastes moonshine on her lips— _Drunk_ , she's drunk. This isn't something Clarke and he do. They don't flirt; they fight. For them, it may as well be synonymous.

This isn't what she wants; she doesn't want him. She's drunk. Her lips try to move over that final millimetre; he turns his head away.

"Clarke…" a flash of hurt flickers on her face, tightening in her cheeks. It's gone just as quick.

The buttons on her shirt graze his bare chest, setting off an avalanche of sparks that course over his skin. _She's_ _drunk_. Bellamy thinks she really needs to button up that shirt before he internally combusts.

So that's what he does. Nimbly, his fingers do up the bottom button, trailing his way up.

Her laughter pinks his ears by the third one. "You're distracting," he mutters, focusing on the buttons at breast level, on the buttons, he swears.

"Misogynistic, but thanks."

He rolls his eyes, grabbing her hand to lead her to the still.

Around them, the others begin to sing an old Ark song. Murphy belts it on top of a table. Echo and Emori struggle to keep up with the words, laughing all the same.

Bellamy pours them both drinks, gasoline smell oozing from the bottles of hooch. He hands her one, nearly—once again—thrown off-guard by how carefree she is.

Or maybe gorgeous.

Of course, statistically, she's not the most beautiful woman who has ever lived. He definitely didn't think so when he first saw her, (he thought she was pretty, maybe hot) but not gorgeous, not show-stopping; he was kind of busy trying to rip her bracelet off.

He must've been stupid or something.

Clarke looks up at him with those eyes he loves, and he thinks, _wow, she's short._ She kicks him in the shin and turns out he said that out loud. He kisses her on the brow to make up for it, because he isn't drunk enough to.

She holds up her cup, saying, "to the hundred." A void feeling fills his lungs.

Ah, the hundred, that family they failed.

"To the hundred," they clink glasses, "and all the shitty things we did for them." Throwing their heads back with the liquor, they turn the page.

Hours pass, shots disappear, and he gets drunk, so drunk, too drunk, in fact. It's time for bed, someone decides. They walk off towards "bed", both nearly naked, laughing their asses off. She holds his hand and kisses his jaw. They've been platonically(definitely) kissing all night, nearly everywhere but the lips. He looks into her eyes. Freckling greens call out amongst the blue, pulling him in, and fuck, does he fall, and fall, and fall.

Stupidly, the words just slip out a couple steps from his door. "I love-"

(They both had a lot to drink, as it turns out.)

-Her lips crash into his, bursting his eyes open under the pressure. Bellamy's back hits the cool silver of the wall as she makes his whole decade with her lips.

Fuzzily, he tries to remember why he thought this was a bad idea.

Her tongue slips into his mouth, carving her fingers over his toned body. He pushes back, rolling them over and right onto his door, indented in the wall. Clarke's back thumps resentfully against the metal, but she doesn't seem to notice, pulling him in for more and more, because he can't get enough of this drug, this addiction.

To be fair, he's been addicted to Clarke Griffin for longer than what's healthy.

The metal slides open and he nearly loses his balance when she pulls him inside by the waistband of his boxers. The door closes behind them as silence echoes in with their heavy breathing and sloppy kisses. Sunlight peaks in through his window, igniting the dust particles and making her hair glow.

His knees hit the bed and he falls onto his back. Clarke's hips quickly straddle atop his. The glare of the sun catches in her eyes as she looks down on him.

Bellamy is hazy, mind short-circuiting as he pushes onto his elbows.

It's now he notices the sheer panic on her face. Beyond her puffy lips, there's an unsettling fear in how she swallows. So much for happy. You can't silence trauma and he knows that too well.

It burns in her eyes as her hands settle—no, push on his bare shoulders.

"Don't say it," she tells him, pressing her lips on his between each word. He's receiving two very different messages here. "You don't." Alarms ring in his mind but she grinds down on him and maybe, it's fine.

Her eyes are dull; he's ruined everything. _She doesn't feel the same way._

Awkward, he's so awkward, rigid underneath her. Clarke ignores his splintered, rigid posture. She pulls back, unbuttoning her(his) shirt. The buttons pop open easier than when he had closed them.

The shirt slides off her pale shoulders to the floor, heaping on his feet.

"Bellamy?" She asks above him, probably concerned with his lack of response. "You okay?" Clarke sounds a little scared and he nearly laughs at his stupidity, bringing his palms to his forehead.

"I'm fine."

She moves his hands away, kissing each of his fingers.

Here he is, in his boxers (and socks) underneath a nearly naked Clarke Griffin—and he's wallowing.

"I care about you." That doesn't help, Clarke, but good try.

"I'm fine," and he means it this time, "sorry." Grabbing the back of her neck, he pulls her mouth to his. Bellamy nibbles on her bottom lip, groaning. He sits up and his fingers reach behind, pushing at her bra. He tugs it over and down her arms, settling on his back and tossing it into the unknown. She's fucking gorgeous: lacy panties, puffy lips, ruddy cheeks, and curly, golden hair splayed over shoulders, tickling her nipples. She's panting and gnawing her lip _adorably_.

That's one of his favourite things he's learned that she does, that goddamn lip bite.

When he tries to sit up on his elbows to capture that perfect lip, she pushes him back without a word. Stunned, he laughs, "Princess _is_ bossy."

She gets off of him. He lifts his head pathetically, chinking his neck.

"Yep." She tugs down his boxers, pressing a kiss to his navel before rising up to his lips. "And I'm gonna ride you." A tingle clenches in his stomach, throbbing to his cock. Clarke settles atop him again. He involuntarily bucks up into her with a groan. "Nuh uh." She pulls her core as far from his member as possible, pushing her palms on his abs.

He grits his teeth, grabbing the sheets. "Seriously, Clarke?"

"Princess."

"So bossy," he teases, grinning at her.

He nearly yelps when she pushes her underwear aside with two fingers and sinks onto him, swallowing his member.

"Patience."

She forces his shoulders down, slapping his hands away when they reach for her hips. His fingers clutch the sheets instead, desperate for purchase.

Learning quickly, he lays there and takes it. Then, he doesn't.

Sitting up, he locks his strong arms around her. His thumbs rub the sides of her perfect, heavy breasts as he presses his face into her collar.

"Hey-"

"-Tell me to stop, Princess." Her eyes hold his. Challenging.

Thrusting and bucking up into her, his teeth pinch her nipple and she screeches, high-pitched and short. His lips smother her neck as his fingers push aside her lacy panties even more to find her clit. She grabs his other hand, pulling his fingers into her mouth to silence her screams. He comes right there, spilling into her as fireflies dance behind his eyes.

Flipping them over, he thrusts into her with his fingers, teeth biting her nipples as she sobs his name in ecstasy. Then, he switches his palms and tongue, nose pressing her clit. Using a trick he has learned, he presses just beneath her navel with his palm. Her eyes go wide, and she tries to sit up.

He is bossy too.

He stands, lifting her hips so she collapses back down before he settles again. Over and over, "Bellamy," leaves her lips; she begins to tremble. Clarke explodes, tearing her hips away from him. He follows, massaging her clit with his thumb as she rides out her orgasm. They fall into a heap. His bronzed skin, freckled and scarred, contrasts hers, clear and beauty-marked.

It's over. What the fuck just happened?

"Bellamy," she murmurs, resting her clammy fingers on his shaking shoulders between her legs. They stick together uncomfortably. He tries to pull himself off her to stand. Her knees clench at his sides. "Are you… I-"

"-I'm drunk." The words are quick, true; he is drunk. Still:

Bellamy loves Clarke: big surprise.

Her relief is like a thunderstorm rolling in to ruin a scorching day, so abrupt, so unmistakable; he knows what's coming, the lightning, the hail. He can see it in the blackened weight of the cloudy eyes.

His heart squeezes and she kisses him.

Now that it's over, he tastes the moonshine on her lips, remembering why this was a monumentally bad idea. It's fine. He'll be fine. They're in space, close quarters; it's not like they had a ton of options, anyway.

People are bound to fuck, it's fine.

Honestly, if Clarke wasn't here, he probably would've fucked Echo or Raven. She probably would've too, if either of them were interested.

He flushes.

What the fuck is wrong with him? Oh right, he's trying to use logic to repress the way his throat is clogging like the rusted cogs of a clock.

Pushing herself up, Clarke reaches out a hand to his chin, and he nearly flinches away. She recoils at his unconscious rejection, gnawing her _fucking_ lip.

"We're good, Clarke." Her lips pull up, and she kisses him, light and pretty.

..

He's shocked to see her there in the morning, in all honesty.

His eyes flutter open, or they try to, puffy and blurred. A throbbing fills his head. The sheets catch him around the knees. He squints his eyes. Ouch. What the fuck.

Then there's a groan, a bitchy one, if he had to pick a word. She's _here_. She _stayed_.

(Clarke doesn't stay, not with him.)

Head pounding in the rhythm of a drum, he cracks his neck toward her, sacrificing his eyesight. She's there, hair absolutely ruined, drooling into his pillow. Questionable censorship aside, she's beautiful. Prettiest girl he's ever seen.

Even with hair in her mouth and bruises on her chest. To be fair, the hickeys add to the appeal.

Bellamy sits up, losing all sense of reality in an instant as vertigo spills in. His shoulders ache as he tries to roll them. He needs a list, a list, focus, a list, a plan. Where was he? Okay, a) water—no, a) is definitely clean underwear; he can't be an exhibitionist.

Clarke mumbles some nonsense, curling in on herself.

Ignoring his headache, he leans over and removes the hair from her mouth. She screws her eyebrows, throwing the sheet over her head.

His lips quirk up.

Bellamy gets out of bed; the chilly air gives no sympathy, making his hair stand up. He grabs boxers from his compact dresser, debating the shirt.

His shoulders throb. He doesn't quite feel like pulling it over his head, but he'd rather not walk around shirtless.

This isn't the dropship, so he pulls one over his head.

Thankfully, the corridors are a sanctuary, untouched by hangover madness. It's quiet and for a second he daydreams, about nothing really, passing thoughts. In the kitchen, he grabs two metal cups, carefully placing them on the grey island to avoid that awful clink. He succeeds, scratching his jaw.

He's going to need to shave soon, or maybe he should grow it out.

"You reek of sex." _Clink, clink, clink._ He jolts, clattering the cups to the floor. His ears bleed and ring, but when his finger checks there's nothing but ringing.

"What the fuck, Reyes?"

How long was she just sitting there, at the island with her tea, smirking her merry morning away?

"Your hair's wack too." He brings his fingers up to his locks, and sure enough, three cowlicks greet him. He groans at her snort. She blows the steaming cloud above her red mug mockingly. Bellamy sighs against the counter, arguing with himself about whether or not to pick up the cups.

"Have fun with Clarke?"

Instantly, he bends down to grab the cups, postponing the question. She scoffs at his blatant ignorance. "She better than me?" _Bitch_. He nearly drops the cups again.

He laughs, they both do and it _hurts_. "By a long shot." She cringes with him. A throb resonates through his skull.

"Not my finest moment." She sips her tea, laughing at herself. He walks to their water filter and presses the button, filling the cup. "No regrets this time?"

Like the kick of a rifle, it hits him. Failed confessions are definitely something he'd rather not think of. In his brooding, the metal cup nearly overflows. He switches them.

"Oh no, what happened?"

"She probably won't be there to get this cup, honestly." He sighs, sipping his water. "My drunk ass thought a confession was a great idea." Raven's brows raise, in confusion, in astonishment? He's too tired.

"And… it wasn't?" He just stares at her, hard, gritting his teeth, "But she's like… in love with you."

"She's like… _not_." He awkwardly rushes away, trying not to spill. He walks on a tightrope.

She's like, _definitely_ not.

The walk back to the room is a little bit worse on his anxiety. His mind is clearer, contemplating. What if it's awkward, and she stops talking to him? He stands outside his door, holding his breath. It slides open. There she is, clad in his t-shirt (again), on her stomach, and covered in a sheet. Hair still ratty, her eyes lift to his, dropping her pencil onto her sketchbook. Her sketchbook.

Did she go to her room and _come back?_

She smiles at him, flushing a little before ducking her gaze. Hesitantly, he walks toward her, holding out a cup, "...you aren't hungover?"

Taking the cup into her hands, she lifts a brow at him. "Not really."

They're fine.

It all feels fine; she sets her cup on his bedside, next to her watch. Clarke sits up, crossing her legs and picking up her sketchbook.

He puts his cup down too, sitting down next to her in bed. "So you're just naturally bitchy in the morning?"

She smack her book on his arm, squinting her eyes at him. "Ass."

Bellamy grins at her, and she brings her hand up to his tangled hair, patting it down. He pouts like a child, like a puppy. Octavia used to tell him he looked like an angry puppy.

"Stop whining," she murmurs, "not my fault your hair's a mess."

"Kinda is."

He smirks deviously, poking her side. Her eyes roll, and before he can respond she pecks him on the lips, pulling and back to her book like it's _nothing._

She just kissed him sober, lucid.

So badly, he wants to question it; the words are biting his tongue. He doesn't say them. They spend the day together, laying side by side, seldom talking, but were they ever chatty?

They said what mattered, when it mattered, avoiding what simmers between.

Clarke doesn't leave him this time, no she stays the day. It confuses him. She just stays, and stays, leaving once to clean herself up. She comes back, but she's not unwelcome. Clarke's kisses him all day in that in-between kind of way, tingling his insides.

Once, she doesn't pull back.

She settles on top of him and they fuck, slow and hard, all at once. Completely sober. She stays in the morning. Bellamy is so utterly confused but she makes him happy.

..

They act like a couple, in almost every way. It starts to frustrate him, gradually, then all at once.

She kisses him in front of their friends, and touches him in that soft way that makes everyone gag. When they walk next to each other she grabs his hand. They wander the Ring, discovering booze and pain and more places to christen.

Her feet are always, _always_ cold.

That detail sucks. He loves it, (but never says it). On group movie nights they cuddle, and she sticks those wretched feet under his legs.

They're in his room—theirs? He hasn't mentioned the fact that her stuff has been migrating. It lines his shelves in the shape of her trinkets, her sketchbooks, and her pencils. Clothing litters all over the floor, and a watch is on his bedside.

He doesn't know why he even tries reading his book.

Bellamy can't focus on _The Histories,_ not with Clarke there, beautiful and distracting and _annoying_. Tank top and panties, and now she's bending over to erase something.

Fuck.

Bellamy is also a little frustrated; they practically _live_ together and he doesn't know what this is, what they are.

It's been _two_ years.

He's read this one paragraph like ten times, but he still doesn't know what's happening. Bellamy folds it in defeat, consuming her with his eyes.

Angry and sexually frustrated.

Clarke relaxes on her stomach in the midst of papers, sketching contently. It seems to be all she does, but she loves it.

She bounces her feet in the air, chewing her pencil.

(It's really easy to pretend when moments like these ones arise. Pretend that she loves him.)

It's the same thing all over again, years later. She sits up, eyes pinching dejectedly. His anger softens. He doesn't wait until she's almost crying to intervene, not this time.

Pushing off his mattress, he steps around the clothes and paper; it's like paint spatter all over his floor. He settles beside her, carefully moving a couple manila papers aside. His one knee is pulled to his chest, the other is stretched out.

It's the same, nearly.

Picking up the sketchbook, she squeezes the rings and smooths over the paper. Clarke holds out Jasper for him to witness, bent all excited on her knees. Her eyes are wistful, reminiscent. He takes the book into his hands. Bellamy stares at the drawing, marvelling in how she possibly draws people verbatim.

A talent like none he's ever seen, but it's not like he's ever taken the time to examine someone else's art. Not even Michaelangelo's.

Jasper's shaved head fits his disorganized scruff and sad eyes, (because he was just as _real_ , just as _there_ , and he mattered just as much as the one who was happy).

Running her fingers along the edges of his angry face as it sits in Bellamy's lap, she whispers, "my saviour." Clarke laughs dryly, a near cough, lifting her eyes to Bellamy. "How wrong was he?"

Clarke doesn't want an answer, and he doesn't want to give one. He moves closer to her, pushing the book back into her lap.

(" _You saved so many,"_ he wants to say.

" _Not him,"_ she'd respond, because it's the only thing she can see. She can't save everyone. She just can't, but for people like Clarke, sleeping, _living_ while others can't, is unimaginable.)

"You saved me," he gives, twiddling her hair between his fingers, "and Raven, and Murphy, and-" she kisses him, a quick peck.

He doesn't let her stop him, unbending his knee down to join his outstretched leg. "You could've died fixing that tower." Her lips move to his neck, setting the book atop another sketch with a clattering pencil. "I almost had to close that hatch on you."

She climbs onto him, pushing her fingers under his t-shirt. "I did what I had to-"

"- _Exactly_." He grabs her wrists before they can pull his shirt over his head, begging her to listen. "You always do what you have to, all that you can do."

For the first time maybe ever, she believes him. He sees it in her eyes.

"You too." Not always, no, but he tries to.

It came to her so easily: that self-destructiveness, selflessness, her self-sacrificial tendencies, and the guilt she didn't deserve to bear. It breathes her oxygen.

She bears everything.

Bellamy pulls her into his lap even further, kissing their cores and pretending too easily. His lips latch onto hers, pouring his passion, and leeching her guilt.

It's all he's known, for so, so long: guilt, blame, guilt. He can take more.

Her hands curl into his hair as they kiss their problems upon one another. Papers shuffle when she adjusts her feet, smudging their way into leady oblivion. Her tongue pushes into his mouth, dancing with his as they sway back in forth in their kiss. She pulls his shirt over his head, standing to slide herself out of her panties before lowering herself down again.

(It's so easy to pretend sometimes, so easy it hurts.)

This anchor of theirs? It's dragging them down, curling around their ankles and drowning them. They can claw for the surface (for each other) all they want; it seems relief will never come.

Her shirt comes off, and she pulls his jeans down with his boxers, helping him kick them away. She sinks onto him.

Groaning, he latches onto her guilty lips, because he was never selfless, self-sacrificial, and he'll take what she'll give, every time. If there's one they had in common, it was self-destruction.

He will never be good like her.

(Not in his eyes, but if he just looked into hers, only for a second he'd see a different kind of anchor.

One that doesn't drag him down. He'd see an anchor that holds his position, no matter how far he drifts, pulling him back to the here and now.)

(All's fair when he's pretending.)

He snaps her bra strap teasingly as she curves above him; he can feel it already, that blissful build up. It's slow, steady, easy and fun.

If only their lives could've been like that.

Snap goes the bra strap. She slaps his hand with a moaning laugh, bobbing slowly on top of him. He smirks into her lips, bringing his thumb between her legs, lightly pressing her clit in circles. Minutes pass ten seconds at a time and he watches her flush and moan her way to that peak, charting her body with his fingers.

Everything picks up in an instant.

Bellamy's stomach tightens. Squeaks leave her breathless as she quickly overwhelms at the sudden stimulation. He comes, blacking out into starry skies and pressing up, into her so far, so hard. Bellamy grabs her hips to pull her down with him, refusing to pull out of her. She's still shaking above him, almost there. He locks her wrists in one hand, brushing her clit with his thumb. Small pressure, slow circles, just how she likes it.

Clarke's eyes fly wide, pulsing her cunt around his cock and thrashing her arms to get away. Her thighs begin to shake, stuttering her rhythm as she bites her lip to hold back her screams. He kisses her to help, and her eyes roll back, core twitching and clenching on his cock.

"Come on, Princess." Their lips break, but his thumb is relentless. "Ride it out."

She doesn't muffle her scream, and it shatters the walls. Her head falls on his bronzed shoulder, resting her hand on his cheek.

Banging concusses from the wall, before the muffled sound of Murphy's voice filters in. "Having fun?" Clarke flushes above him, still shaking.

"Having fun, Princess?" Bellamy whispers in her ear mockingly. She smiles at him, pretty and lovely, punching his shoulder.

Fuck, he loves her. It all catches up to him.

The aftermath of _them_ is always a downhill spiral into his sanity, filled with overthinking and crippling anxiety. His filter weakens and his mind is hazy.

"What are we?"

It's a quiet question, loaded with the ammunition of a machine gun. This is not a conversation they should have high off an orgasm, laughing into each other's mouths, but here he is.

Clarke seizes, clenching her knees on his thighs. "Fun." He softens inside her, shifting around the papers they crumpled. Bellamy stares at her harshly, fighting her eyes, and she concedes their three-second dispute. She never concedes. "We're friends."

For some reason, his blood boils. They're friends, _really?_

"We're _fucking_." She doesn't answer him, never does, sagging back onto her heels. He slips out of her, limp, and doesn't have it in him to be embarrassed.

Clarke has the gall to look hurt, angry even.

Bellamy continues, "we go on _dates_." He motions to everything around them; _The Histories_ mocks him from the countertop. "You practically live here, Clarke."

Their thighs stick together uncomfortably, like a band-aid left on too long. It essentially is, to be honest, and it's time to rip it off.

 _Unfair. Uncalled for._ "You touch me like you love me." It's thick, with a whisper. "I touch you like…" Goddamnit, "like- I... I _love you_." The force behind his words makes his voice hoarse.

("...like I love you," not, "I love you." He's getting there.)

It's so much harder saying it sober.

It leaves her flinching just like the last, but this is the one secret Clarke will never trust him with. He brings his hand up to her face, brushing aside her hair. Her eyes are grey today, tearing up.

"I can't- I can't, not with you."

An ache explodes in his stomach, crawling over the hair on his arms. He swallows, forgetting any answer or questions he could ever give.

 _Not with him._ Is he not enough? Is he ever? Tears prick in his eyes.

( _"I need you,"_ she'd said years ago now, and he really, truly thought he could be enough for her.)

He pushes her off him—gently, because he's not that much of an asshole—and begins scavenging for his clothes: nude, rejected, and absolutely humiliated. All for her.

He must really hate himself.

His boxers slide on in a rush, sticking in the grossest of ways, his pants too, and his foot lands on a paper in his haste, picking it up. His eyes are so blurry, so wet, burning as he tries to kick it off him.

Clarke stares; his back tingles with her eyes.

"Bellamy..." Where is his shirt? "That's not what I meant." Why does she get to sound scared?

He stops, finally taking a breath. His voice starts in a yell, cracking and gradually falling into a whisper. "What did you mean, then, _Clarke?_ "

She doesn't answer, and he doesn't look at her. He needs to go.

It's the first time he leaves her behind, (but he comes back, again, and again, and again.)

..

When you're stuck in space with someone, you can't really stay mad for too long.

Three months, he stays away from her. He really fucking wanted to be around her, but he just couldn't without wanting to kiss her. If they are friends, they are going to be _friends_. No sex, no kissing. He needs an icebreaker, a _let's-be-friends._

On one of his many 'avoid Clarke' days, he finds a chessboard in Chancellor Jaha's old quarters. It's an old, wooden thing. Checkered oak and spruce. The pieces are nice, chipped as they may be. He blows the dust off the board, rubbing the shoddy engraving.

" _Property of Wells Jaha."_

His heart breaks on the spot.

They used to play, for hours, she'd said. _Poor Wells._ Bellamy never really got the chance to know him, but he gave him love advice on Clarke once or twice. Bellamy could use some of that now. He grins wryly, picking up the board. The boy would have returned the favour, no doubt. Wells would probably laugh himself silly at how pathetically in love with Clarke Bellamy is.

Bellamy brings it to her. For once, she isn't sketching. Clarke stares out the window, standing arms crossed.

"Teach me to play, Princess?" Her eyes shoot to him, shocked. Radio silence for three months does that to a person.

( _Try 2,199 days._ He shakes his head: what kind of thought is that?)

She watches him warily, flitting her gaze to the board. He sits on the floor right next to her feet.

 _Friends_.

Bellamy sets up the wooden pieces the best he can. Horses at the ends, castles next to that. He doesn't even know what twisty ones are called. She sits down across from him. After a second, Clarke fixes them, laughing softly, because Bellamy gets every piece wrong (except the pawns).

Turns out they're called: rook, knight, and bishop. He knew king, queen and pawns.

He can't decide if he'd be the knight or the king, but he has no doubt she'd be the queen. (Either way, he'd bow down to her.)

This is friendship, he thinks, as she corrects him, because, "bishops can't go straight!" He chuckles, messing up again, maybe on purpose. This is good. This is friends. Their hands touch once or twice, sparking in the worst way. They begin talking again, but he's stingy with his boundaries, nearly refusing to touch her. Not on movie nights, or when they all play _normal_ poker. Not at all.

This is good. This is friends.

..

He cracks, fucking her in the kitchen. She sneaks by him and her breasts press against his back just that way. He flips around, picking her up and onto the counter. She doesn't even hesitate. _Four months._

Her sweats come down, hanging off one ankle. She pushes his own down just enough for his dick to spring from his pants.

He's inside her and it feels so right. She heaves, leaning back against the metal cupboard. It's quick. Clarke comes in an avalanche of swears, milking him. It's so far overdue he isn't even angry.

"Damnit," he laughs into her collar. She kisses his neck.

"Bellamy..." He backs away, dropping her from the counter. "Look, I can't lose you- not again." Obviously, he needs her more than he needs to be validated. _Friends_ for him really wasn't working out.

..

Five years, they are supposed to be up here five years.

They've nearly done four. He's probably the only one not looking forward to returning to the ground. When Raven tells them solemnly they can't make it home, he nearly sighs in relief. His algae tastes better than usual.

(Clarke won't want him on the ground, not like this. It's such a selfish, selfish thought.)

..

They make it to the ground anyway, and break Wonkru from the floor.

They have to defect; Echo isn't welcome according to Octavia. In a tent, Bellamy and Clarke argue, just like the good old days. "We don't leave our people behind."

"Octavia is my sister-"

"'Your responsibility,' I know, Bellamy." She puts her hands on her hips. "I'm going, with or without you. Echo is my people."

_Leaving. Leaving. She's leaving._

"Fine," he scoffs, laughing his anger into submission. He sniffs, wiping his nose. "Fine. _Leave_. It's your fucking specialty." Her mouth gapes, tears instantly welling in her eyes. He tries not to care, refusing to concede under the immediate regret. He laughs in his angry, deflecting way. It's what he knows.

" _Fine_."

..

Echo, Murphy and Raven defect.

Clarke does not. He pushes his way through to the outside his tent. She stands. Dimmed by fire light, her arms are crossed in front of her. Her eyes stick to his knees.

"I- hey."

She looks a little scared, (but she stayed). "Clarke." He breathes in surprise, retreating back into his tent.

She follows.

..

Clarke looks down on him, brushing the curls from his forehead. Naked, they lie on the cot. Earth sex. He just had sex with her, (on Earth).

"We've gotta get dressed and talk to your sister."

She's right; they do. It's a comfortable thing. Eyes linger. Clothes slide on, and she smiles at him. They barely make it out his tent before things go to shit. Miller has Clarke in handcuffs. Octavia passively watches. Blood stains her face, and blackness stains her eyes.

"O! Octavia!" He pushes Miller—his once _best friend_ Miller—grabbing for Clarke.

"As of right now, you had nothing to do with this, Bellamy." His sister, she's so different. "Don't change my mind."

"Bellamy," Clarke murmurs. He makes eye contact with her, promising what he can't say.

She nods minutely.

..

He's doing this; he's doing this.

Poison sits in his hand as his sister calls him out on his love for Clarke. He isn't _pleading_ and Clarke isn't a _traitor_ , but she got the _love_ part right. This isn't Octavia. It's Blodreina and he's about to poison her for Clarke. Bellamy remembers when he threatened Clarke for putting Octavia in danger, and now he's putting Octavia in danger for threatening Clarke.

He never thought he'd see the day.

..

Over a century later, he opens his eyes to the sight of her.

"Hey."

"Hey."

(He must be good at pretending, because even that sounded like an "I love you," twisted beyond repair.)

..

When they make it to Sanctum, things don't change either. They dance at a party, kissing between the beats and the steps. She laughs against him. Cillian stares at them, and Bellamy wants to wink at him, just to be an asshole. Clarke grinds against him with a grin.

(Flickers of Clarke dancing with Cillian fill his mind and they feel so, so real. The envy that spikes him is familiar; it's envy, not jealousy.

It's a feeling of wanting what he's never had, not a fear of losing what he does have. It doesn't make sense; he has her, in his arms, laughing and singing with the music.)

He goes to get some punch to clear his head, and she's gone. Like an idiot, he doesn't think about it too hard.

..

Clarke says it to him first, but not really.

Her voice is too high, too sassy, and it's Josephine, crawling her way under his skin in every way that counts.

He drags her through to the forest when the force field comes down and she never stops fighting him. She whines and grunts and complains. Josephine sounds like everything except Clarke, so as long as he doesn't look at her, they're good.

"I've seen her memories, y'know." She claps her hands together mockingly as she follows him a step behind. "Oh, _Bellamy_ ," she moans, making him cringe.

It's Clarke's face, and it's Clarke's body and it sounds just right. It shakes him to his core.

"You can't keep ignoring me." She grabs his ass. Jumping, he snatches the cuff of her chains. He rips her wrists up to her face, brushing her nose. Her grin is maniacal.

"Don't."

Her lips press to his fingers, and he catches her eyes and how they glint. _Not Clarke, not Clarke._ She pushes onto her toes, but he turns his head last second. _Not Clarke._

"We should have some fun."

His face cringes and the idea makes him want to puke. Before he can respond, the Children of Gabriel ambush them.

They get locked up together in a musty cave. He's stuck with the most pretentious girl in existence.

Her hand feigns a lever pull. "Together," Josephine whispers to him, wrists chained, leaning against the rocks.

"Stop talking." His wrists bleed, dripping down his hand as he tugs his chains yet again.

"She loves you," Josephine says airily, laughing. His heart freezes, clenching like a fist: _don't listen, don't._ She's crazy. "Did _not_ want me to tell you," she tilts her head.

He can't help it; the oxygen won't comply. "What?"

She's one avoidant bitch. "Finn! Lexa! He'll die!" Her head pushes back against the rock. "'Course, that's not how she said it, but I can read between the lines." Bellamy looks at her in confusion and she winks at him. Anger bubbles up in him. "You're a smart guy. Figure it out."

That's not Clarke.

Her finger moves, tapping, and again. Josephine keeps talking while Bellamy stares at her rhythm.

"Leave me." She taps on her arm. He scoffs, and luckily Josephine thinks he's referring to her. She rolls her eyes.

Does Clarke really think he'd ever leave her?

Josephine notices he's not listening, finally, looking at her hand _. "B-I-T-C-H._ Bitch." Bellamy clanks his wrists. Even practically possessed, Clarke won't be silenced. "Damn, cruel," she says.

"She can hear us?" Bellamy asks through the musky, cave air.

"Seems so." She looks at him, quirking a brow. For a beat, he stares at her. "Oh for Christ's sake, just say what you wanna say."

He nearly does _. I love you._ "I won't let you die." Josephine rolls her eyes, huffing at him, but her fingers move.

She laughs, slapping her hands on her knee. "As _if_ that's what you were gonna say." Chuckles leave her. "Pathetic."

He is. He knows that.

" _Thank you,"_ her fingers tap.

..

.

.

.


	3. five graves and a girl

_**original diversion:** _

_**10:05:05** _

_**October 5, 2149** _

_**codename:** _

_**bellamy blake** _

_**iii. I had a choice, and I chose.** _

He thought it'd happen under the shooting stars, maybe when he was on guard duty.

Like he is now, breathing cold breaths of fog. Snow scatters around him. He has a line ready and everything. _"I know what to wish for now."_ It's kind of embarrassing how much time and thought he's put into this, into her.

Bellamy doesn't just want the sex; he doesn't want to label it either.

The delinquents have done well for themselves, Bellamy thinks. They have a passable treaty with the grounders, and everything seems to be going well. Except the Ark of course. They came crashing down and landed right on top of Mount Weather, burning the Arkers to a crisp, and melting the Mountain Men in the radiation.

No one survived. Bellamy nearly pukes at the memory.

Clarke though, she stood tall, resting a hand on his shoulder. In front of him, she settled to her knees in the rubble. Burning fires and metallic smells silhouetted her.

"This wasn't your fault. Breaking that radio had nothing to do with this." She pressed her palm to his knee, he remembers. Her gaze was filled with fire.

In that moment, it was exactly what he needed to hear.

Then, they stood, amongst fallen trees, leaking hydrazine and crying children. They stood, and began sorting through the remains of their people and Mount Weather's. They stood and stood, because it's harder to put everything back together when you let it break you first.

Medical supplies, rations, food, clothing, blankets: it all survived.

The people didn't.

Clarke thought a memorial would be a good idea, for all of the dead not just theirs. She leaned over a small boy—Ian, Bellamy remembers—and she softly tells him, _yes_ , his parents are dead, and _yes_ , they aren't coming back, but he does have a family here.

"I'm your family now." Clarke's eyes were warm and resolute. "We all are." The smell of cooked flesh did not deter her as Ian, in a shirt too big, sobbed into her chest.

Bellamy's little infatuation with her grew from there, from dragging home blankets and building a wall—the one he sits on now—and constructing cabins and arguing and arguing.

Now, it's been almost a year since then.

" _I'm your family now._ " Bellamy remembers applying her words to himself, because he's selfish like that. He's always been a little too drawn to her. At his post, he lounges back in his chair; wind blows through his jacket. He has three more hours left. Even the snowfall can't occupy his mind, freezing his fingers in his fingerless gloves.

Can winter just end?

Replaying sensual dreams starring Clarke only takes him so far. She can kiss his cheek, snatch his hand. In his head.

Bellamy examines every conversation they had today; he relays every touch. The night sky is dark, Bellamy notes. His eyes trace the Milkyway. The stars remind him of Clarke, because he's pathetic like that. The flakes dance down.

So _bored_.

He hears a stick crack, and crunching snow. Bellamy bolts upright, hoisting his gun to full attention. It came from inside the wall, he realizes so he's less alert than he would be. His eyes trace over the roofs of the cabins lining each side of their main path; there's nothing.

He settles, but then Bellamy's ears perk to the sound of giggling.

 _Clarke giggling_. What? Bellamy leans his head over the wooden wall. There she is, pushed up against Finn Collins, kissing. His eyes widen. Bellamy's heart clenches harshly. He swears it stops beating for a moment.

What about Raven? (What about him?)

Bellamy knew they were getting friendly again, but he thought that was it, _friendly_ , because Clarke doesn't hold grudges anymore, not after Wells. He thought they were _just friends._

Of course, he was wrong. Of course.

Bellamy looks to the cracked clock they found in the ruins a year ago—two hours, fifty-five minutes left.

Bellamy turns back to the snow-burdened evergreens of the forest, ignoring the kissing, and he can almost pretend they're some other couple, but then she has to giggle. He grinds his teeth, ignoring the slight sting behind his eyes. It's fine.

It doesn't matter. He hopes Finn gets hypothermia.

She laughs again, and Bellamy's hands clutch the gun. He leans his head over the wall, throat catching when he sees them. "There's a curfew, y'know?" His voice is rough and harsh, but he doesn't care.

He's hurt and has no right to be, so his pride can take the night off.

Clarke jumps back from Finn, her head flying in every direction for the voice. "Up here, Princess." Finn does not appreciate the use of the nickname, but he and his lion's mane can suck Bellamy's dick. "You gotta follow the rules you make."

Bellamy expects a rush of satisfaction, but when her face dips in shame the hollow batch of butterflies swirls uncomfortably in his stomach. Damnit, this is exactly why she likes Finn more than him. The younger boy makes her laugh, makes her feel good, and not like she's doing everything wrong.

That's Bellamy's job.

But, Raven fell from the sky, that had to mean something. Apparently not.

"It's fine, Princess," Finn says, grabbing her wrist. This time, it's Bellamy who sneers at the moniker. "For once, he's right. Let's go." They go, and when she looks back at Bellamy through the snowflakes, eyes shining with almost regret, he refuses to believe it means anything.

Her hair looked so pretty with snow in it. He groans, slouching.

For a while he sits there, thoughts buzzing insatiably. This is so much worse, he decides. Imagining what they're doing, where Finn's touching, the name she's moaning.

It's not "Bellamy," that's for sure, and the thought makes him feel all kinds of inadequate. It's torture. Two-and-a-half hours left on this wall, in the cold and dark. He refuses to look to the sky.

At this point he wishes he made them stay.

..

He gets over it the next night.

It was only a minor infatuation—clearly—and now that he thinks about, he kind of missed casual sex. Roma leaves his cabin in the morning, waving him goodbye.

Clarke looks up from where she's crouched cooking deer, eyes catching on Roma. Her feet soak in the slush the fire creates. He leans against his doorframe, crossing his arms against the cold.

Her eyes watch him calculatingly, cheeks red, lips blue.

He holds his breath like he's waiting for something but he doesn't know what. For her to care, maybe? Clarke turns back to the flames. A heavy feeling fills him, and he shuts his door. His cabin is empty, chilled with spring's ready touch. Clarke doesn't care, and he really needs to accept that.

..j

Months later, Thelonious Jaha appears out of the woods, along with Murphy and a pretty grounder.

Miller comes running. He flies into Bellamy's cabin, announcing their presence. Impressively, he's undeterred by the sight of Bree tugging her shirt over her head. Bellamy pulls his own shirt on, nodding in thanks to Miller. Grabbing his jacket, he exits the cabin.

It's chaos. Delinquents run back and forth in camp, some trying to do their jobs, others just gossiping.

" _It's Jaha!"_

_"Jaha?"_

_"What if there were more survivors?"_

Bellamy sees Clarke standing by Murphy, who protectively holds in front of the Grounder. Jaha seems dazed. Bellamy makes his way over to them, intercepting Murphy begging for safe passage.

" _Please_. Third time's the charm I swear. We have nowhere else to go." Bellamy can tell Clarke's breaking.

"I have to talk to Bellamy," she amends. He feels a rush he doesn't want to. Her hands tense; she wants to let him stay, and his girlfriend, but he murdered two people.

"They go into lock up. Murphy at least," Bellamy says. Sterling and Monroe rush forward, grabbing John Murphy. He puts up no fight except-

"-Promise me you'll feed her!" He throws himself around.

Clarke doesn't have to ask Bellamy this time. "Of course." Murphy settles and the girl with the tattooed face notably relaxes.

"Emori," she gives, hiding her hand behind her. Clarke is quick to react.

"Are you hurt?"

She reaches for Emori's covered hand. The speed at which the girl pulls a knife is astounding. Clarke backs up cautiously as the cold metal pushes against her throat. Clarke swallows and Bellamy almost tackles the Grounder, but the knife is far too close to Clarke's neck to make a rash move like that. Emori freezes, dropping the blade. "No, please don't kick me out! I'm sorry. John told me-"

He pushes her to the ground, stepping in front of Clarke. "Bellamy!" Clarke bats him to her side. She lowers herself to the grounder. Emori looks panicked.

"John told me, you wouldn't care—it's just..." She reveals her hand. It's a deformity. It's not a big deal; the Ark had a couple of deformed in their populace.

Clarke nods, taking her hand to examine it.

"I don't see any injuries." She stands, offering Emori her hand. "You have to pull your weight." Emori takes the offering, and she's pulled to her feet. "And let us search you for weapons. You're free to stay." Her gaze softens. "No promises on Murphy though, okay?"

Cold, compassionate, calculating.

Bellamy places himself next to her. Emori nods and Harper moves in to search her, chatting kindly, asking of her strengths to find where she'd fit best. "We have venison. Do you like venison?" Emori nods. "Great! It's in the mess hall." Harper drags Emori away.

That's when Jaha coughs. Clarke jolts, clearly forgetting he was there. They question him in Clarke's cabin. It's a quaint little thing Bellamy built for her a while ago.

"I'm the sole survivor."

He sounds so stoic, detached, but maybe that's how he copes. Bellamy knows people handle grief differently; he's no star. Bellamy feels Clarke buckle under Jaha's words, if just slightly. She probably had hope for her mother.

"How?" Bellamy asks.

Jaha explains that he came down in a separate pod, guided by Wells, which sounds crazy. Yet another hit; Bellamy grabs for Clarke's hand and he endures the squeezing, even after he's sure his hands go numb.

"I found the City of Light..."

..

Bellamy should've kept a better eye on things.

After all, so many of the kids are still grieving families, lovers, friends. Then, the Chancellor rolls in, claiming he can make it all disappear.

A third of their camp took that stupid chip, and if I wasn't for Raven's stubbornness, they would've lost for sure.

Bellamy piggy-backs a knocked-out Raven as they run. Monty and Jasper take up his rear, stumbling in step. Finn and Clarke are in the lead. He hears shouts behind them. Finn leads them to a bunker. He opens the hatch. They all descend down the ladder, no questions asked.

Jasper and Finn tie Raven to the bedposts. Bellamy stands next to Clarke.

Then, everything's dealt with and silence ebbs in with the darkness. Finn grabs a pillowcase, staring at Clarke while he does. Jasper sets up a lantern he finds in a drawer, and a blinding hue lights up the bunker. Abruptly, Monty grabs Jasper's arm, pulling his backpack off his shoulder. They sit at the table, scrounging through the bag.

"What are you doing?" Jasper asks, but Bellamy misses Monty's reply, too focused on Clarke as she turns to him.

"I don't know what to do." Clarke whispers to Bellamy. Only he hears, knocking his elbow on hers comfortingly.

Finn pours some water on the pillowcase, pressing on Raven's forehead. "Is there a way to get it out of her head?"

"Yes, and we'll find it," she says with her usual confidence, walking up next to him. Her voice cracks a bit though. Finn reaches out to her but she flinches, taking a miniscule step toward Bellamy.

Bellamy doesn't know how Clarke does it. If someone cheated on him _twice_ , he wouldn't be so level-headed.

Raven apparently decides now is a good time to wake up, and she just _doesn't stop talking_. Finn suggests Bellamy take first watch and he thinks that's the best idea the kid is ever going to have.

Clarke offers to join him, and he decides Spacewalker has awesome ideas.

So they settle on top of the bunker, and Clarke's body finally seems to ease. The darkness crawls over the forest as they sit quietly next to one another.

"Raven doesn't know where this is right?"

"Well, she's been here, but she won't make the correlation," Clarke answers.

"When she fell from the sky?"

"When she fell from the sky."

He leans back, resting his head on his arms. His eyes go to the sky, then to Clarke, then to the sky. She sits, knees tucked to her chest, mindlessly fiddling her thumbs.

"I hate this place," she whispers, breath fogging up the chilly night.

His eyes trace to her, along her blonde tresses, over her blue henley, down to her scuffed boots. He waits for her to continue.

"It's where Finn and I..." Bellamy tenses, feeling an irrational spike of anger. "I don't even know why I'm telling you this."

She tells him everything: that's why.

He sits up to ask the question he's been dying to know the answer to since he first heard them that one night on guard, and then especially when he found Finn with Fox.

He almost shot him; he was so angry. Finn had _Clarke_ , and Bellamy was going to hang him from a pole like a flag of shame, but Clarke just... broke it off, and nothing else. Bellamy wanted him to _burn_ for doing that to two wonderful girls.

Clarke told him no though, and Bellamy listened. Of course, he did.

"Why'd you go back to him? You knew what he did." Her eyes widen, but she doesn't look at him. He sighs in frustration, falling onto his back.

It doesn't matter.

"He was good at excuses." Bellamy tenses, imaging the little stories Spacewalker told: _"I thought Raven was dead!"_ and, _"I love you."_ That one pisses Bellamy off.

His gaze falls to the sky as a star rips across the surface. He nearly laughs at the universe right there.

( _"I know what to wish for now."_

He imagined pointing his finger up and then maybe she'd laugh, ask him, _"what?"_ and then he'd kiss her and never stop.)

Wasn't he a dreamer?

There's no way a girl like her would ever even look at him, a guy like him. He knew that before, but he still let himself believe in maybe. He's sure now.

His heart still wants that though, even if it's stupid.

"It was nice to be wanted, to be looked at." He nearly scoffs, holding it in. Clarke deserves more than judgy sneers. She's awesome, standing up to Grounders, saving Jasper, and Raven, and him.

Those are just things she's _done_. He doesn't even have to mention how pretty she is.

"Plenty of people want you," he says leeringly. She digs her elbow into his thigh and he yelps, trying to push her away. He tries to grab her arm. "Rude!" Clarke snorts, relenting to his protests.

She continues, "Lord knows, Clarke Griffin is too bossy, too boring. She isn't fun." She rambles on quietly. "And I knew it was stupid. I don't need you telling me that."

"You can be fun, Princess, but you're also the one keeping everyone alive and I'm pretty sure the latter is more important." He gives her the validation he knows she's asking for, seeing the way her shoulders relax with his words. "I've always known you were fun."

That's a lie. He's seen her have fun _once_ during Unity Day.

"Always?" She tilts her head to him, teasing. "I distinctly remember being called privileged and stuffy." He has fun when he's with her.

"Meh." He nudges her with the toe of his boot. She laughs, and that makes him happy. "Anyone who says you aren't fun is an idiot. I love being around you." Too much, too much. He begins to panic, falling back. He stares at the Big Dipper constellation, focusing on the sounds of the forest and not on what he said.

"Finn said I wasn't fun." She—the goddess she is—diffuses it for him, but he's also disappointed.

"Exactly."

She smiles at him, and he leans up on his elbows. For a moment they stare, and Bellamy swears electricity rumbles through them. She leans in just barely, under the stars, like he imagined.

But then, the banging starts, and the yelling. Quickly, they jump to their feet, pulling the hatch open.

"You think you're better than everyone, don't you? _Peacemaker, Spacewalker._ You're a _cheater."_ Raven spits.

Finn yells, "just shut up!" Clarke descends down the ladder.

"Finn, take a break." He does, and Raven wastes no time as he shimmies up the ladder.

"More to fuck with, nice." She nods her head at Monty and Jasper. "Those nerds were boring."

"She tried pinning Octavia on Jasper." Monty says over the bracelet.

"I laughed at her." A spark flies and he yelps.

Clarke sits on the floor, granting Jasper a small smile.

"I don't know them well enough, but I know you, don't I? Especially you _Bellamy_ , quite intimately." He looks at her, and suddenly he remembers.

That night was horrible, unsatisfying and a little sad.

Clarke's head tilts inquisitively before her eyes widen. "You slept with Raven?" Clarke asks, subtly crossing her legs. Bellamy leans against the ladder without a word. "Of course you did." She looks away.

" _Awkward,"_ Jasper murmurs to Monty, and Bellamy sends him a glare that promises latrine duty, if they ever get out of this.

"What's that supposed to mean, Clarke?" His tone is no where near soft. She tenses on the floor.

"Well, that was easy," Raven says, smirking. She tugs on her restraint.

"Shut up," they both bark.

"Or _what_? Admit it, Bellamy, you loved being under me. Or maybe you just love taking orders? Must be why you like Clarke so much."

His teeth grit. "Shut. Up." He imagines strangling her, which unsettles him. It's still Raven.

"The good little knight, by his queen's side, too bad you were never that devoted to Octavia." Bellamy can feel his body pushing off the ladder.

"EMP!" Monty shouts, jumping up.

"What?" Clarke asks, rising to her feet. She stumbles a bit. Her legs must've fallen asleep.

"We can EMP the chip out of her," Jasper clarifies.

Bellamy's crossed arms drop. He steps forward as Raven starts to babble. "He doesn't know what he's talking about."

"Why didn't you tell us!" Clarke chastises, too ecstatic to be angry. Jasper holds up the bracelet, looking almost ashamed.

"Didn't wanna give false hope..." They're too rushed to care. Clarke turns to Bellamy. She nods her head, and he climbs a few rungs of the ladder. Bellamy punches the hatch a couple times.

It opens and Finn climbs down. Raven starts thrashing. She bangs her head over and over.

"Hold her!" Finn and Bellamy get to that, and Clarke latches the wristband. Monty touches two wires together.

A spark flies and Raven is revived.

..

Bellamy climbs the wall, examining the premises.

Fox, Bree and Harper wander aimlessly. Little Ian too. The chipped reside on one side, chanting about " _peace, unity, painless."_ They try to push their way into the biggest cabin. The mess hall. All the entrances are blocked though.

Subconsciously, he checks for Octavia, but he remembers she's spending the week with Lincoln. Bellamy's never been more grateful for the grounder, but he'll say thanks later.

He drops down beside the wall, scraping his fingers on the wood. "Thirty," he says.

"Will it work?" Clarke asks in a whisper. Raven sits with Monty in the dirt, fiddling with the car battery.

"Am I a genius?" She pats her bummed leg.

"It'll work," Finn mutters. Raven looks at him, quirking a brow. "This won't hurt them right?" His words have a painful thickness in them.

"No," Raven answers.

Bellamy relays the plan in his head. Climb the wall with the bar. Plant it on top of the mess hall, and wrap the copper cord around it. Come back. Easy. Raven hands him the pole, and he wraps the wire around his shoulder.

Monty and Jasper hold up their hands and Bellamy quickly recognizes what they're doing. Sighing, he holds up his palm, and they all clap their own hands quietly. Bellamy is a little late, echoing after.

Jasper laughs, and Clarke's lips pull up. A smile in her eyes.

Bellamy turns to the log wall, planning to take the same path as last time. Just before he starts climbing, Clarke hugs him from behind. His hands are shocked on the wall; the bar pokes her leg and the wire presses into his shoulder. It's uncomfortably flawless.

"Be careful."

"Where's the trust, Princess?"

"In you." She's blunt, and it startles him every time. Clarke lets him go.

He stares at her and nods haltingly. Bellamy starts climbing. She's always blunt; he should be used to it by now, but someone caring about him is unfamiliar. His head pokes over the wall.

Twenty-nine delinquents and a Chancellor stand in his way.

Bellamy uncoils the copper wire, dragging it behind him as he scales the path on the wall. He's thankful for his dark complexion. Clarke would stick out horridly. The mess hall is at the edge of camp, almost like a guardian, much larger than every other building.

He can do this.

..

Everything goes perfectly, and it scares Bellamy. Things don't _go_ perfectly.

He makes it back, handing Raven the end of the copper. Clarke gives him a smile, and then nods at Raven. She sparks the wire and a flurry of thumps hit the mud together. Grabbing his arm, Clarke drags him to the gate.

Twenty-five kids dropped, catatonic. Five of the chipped did not.

They rush for weapons, to _kill themselves._ Bree was one of them, and Fox, two more hit the ground. Bellamy's hands go cold and he grows dizzy. He nearly falls with them.

He failed, and the sound of it numbs his ears.

The last was Thelonious. Clarke runs for him, but she's not fast enough. He stabs himself in the stomach with a stick. She falls to her knees and immediately applies pressure, staining her hands.

He stares around, trying to stomach it. Bellamy walks through the sleeping people, leaving footprints inches deep. They need five more graves. _Five_ , because Bellamy couldn't set up an EMP properly.

"...a bunker." Bellamy catches from Jaha's battered lips. Her shoulders tremble.

He settles next to Clarke as Jaha takes his last breath. Bellamy brings his hand to her elbow to pull her bloodied fingers from the dead man's stomach. Her eyes shift to him, dead and cold. Clarke is going to bear this on her soul, all because he failed. She stares at him, covered in blood and he nearly collapsed under the weight of what's happened.

"I don't feel like someone who just saved our people."

"We didn't."

..

To say he was shocked to see Murphy and Emori herding the children is an understatement. He kept them calm, making sure they ate. Slowly the kids filter out, and among seeing their friends and family wake up from A.L.I.E.'s control, everyone gets a hug or two.

Radiation is coming, in less than six months.

He clenches his fingers, watching the kids. They are rebuilding but Bellamy doesn't see the _fucking point._ He watches as Murphy and Sterling drag those five, useless deaths onto a tarp (because Bellamy failed), thunder rumbling in the distance.

..

He digs the graves.

Mud globs on his shovel as he throws it around. His ears ring. Murphy and Sterling left due to his temperamental attitude, scared of either being smacked in the head with a stray swing, or obliterated by a stinging remark. He's about a foot into the second grave when the rain begins to pour, soaking his arthritic bones.

 _Five of them._ He couldn't save them.

He tried, he did, but he wasn't good enough. It's like he never is, and it makes him hate himself. Shovel full after shovel full of dirt sprays his feet. He has that heavy feeling in his throat, the one that beckons tears and apologies he doesn't deserve to give.

"Bellamy." He jolts, turning his head. His fingers squeeze the spade.

There Clarke is, standing impatiently and henley soaking through in the rain. She's probably been saying his name for a while.

"What do you want, _Princess?_ " he sneers, thrusting his shovel into the mud. It makes a squelch, before the hole fills with water. Useless.

"Be an ass if you want, but your sister will be here soon, and I think we should tell her."

"What? About ' _Praimfaya_ ', and how you _don't know_ what to do, _again."_ The rain pours and pours, marinating the soles of his shoes in destruction for his next massacre. It's inevitable. It's him. He digs faster, facing anywhere but her. He knows he hurt her feelings and no satisfaction will come from seeing it.

 _Five_.

He hears a schlepping noise. Turning, he sees Clarke toeing into his foot-deep hole, palms pushing into the puddling dirt at the edges. They are stained red. She broke every callous, every blister, trying to rid that wretched stain from her hands (from her conscience, her soul). It's what she's spent the last hour doing.

He knows she did. It's Clarke, bearing his bloody ledger, and forgiving him, every time.

Her boots absorb into the mud as rain pelts around them. For a moment, he stares at her, finally breaking from his shovelling regime. She pulls the spade from his arthritic hands, ignoring his blisters, ignoring the pelting sound of raindrops hitting the metal head.

He lifts his eyes to hers, ghosting over the tresses of blonde sticking to her cheeks. _She looks so tired,_ he thinks, staring at her hands as she holds the spade.

"You did so good, Bellamy," he nearly laughs through his tears. _So good._ So good? It's Clarke, paying his debts.

"Not good enough." His hands shake.

"Your best." She drops the shovel like it's worthless. It clangs and hits his foot. Clarke brings her red hands to his face, wiping away tears, maybe raindrops.

"That makes it worse."

"Not for me. I'm proud of you."

 _Five_. Their clothes are completely soaked; his grey t-shirt is nearly black in the rain. Her hair drips as his fingers run through it. He wants to kick the shovel, feel the throb run from his toes to his knee.

"Five people, Clarke."

"Twenty-five people, Bellamy."

She can't win this one. "That's _one-in-six_." His voice cracks. She pushes him back; his knees catch on the muddy edge, making him collapse. His pants soak through immediately as he looks up at her.

Her arms are crossed, thumbing the insides of her damp elbows.

Clarke stares at him with indecision, contemplating on a bitten lip, but when his eyes meet hers in that sorrowful, broken way, she decides. Clarke leans down and kisses him, in the rain, through the tears, to silence Bellamy's stupid, trembling guilt.

This is not what he wanted, or wished for, not at all.

He wanted— _wants_ it to be happy and fun, but he loses himself when she crawls into his lap. He's a goner. Bellamy eats her up like a drug, a depressant, silencing his bleeding heart as he wraps his arms desperately around her waist. Her fingers crawl through his wet hair, combing the sins away as he pushes his tongue into her mouth, using, abusing. She pulls away then, and he's afraid he's done something wrong. It wouldn't surprise him.

Thunder rumbles as she rises from his lap and out of the pit, dragging him by the hand.

Clarke murmurs, "not in the graveyard." He steps out of the puddles of water burrowing at his feet.

"A little rude," he tries for the joke, but his throat catches. Bellamy's tone is so void, so battered, and she doesn't laugh.

His dragging feet can't keep up.

For a minute, Clarke pulls him through the woods, but he only stares at their feet splitting the mud. _Wells, Charlotte, Atom, three-hundred-twenty, plus, plus, plus._ How many has he killed? Bellamy can't keep track.

Somehow, she knows.

" _Stop,"_ she begs, pushing him against a tree. The branches and leaves doing nothing to stop the rain. "You're forgiven, remember?" His laughter does choke through this time, corrupted. She sweetly presses her lips to his.

Clarke drops to her knees as he sags against the tree in defeat. She rips the button of his jeans open. His fingers go to her hair, biting his lip.

This is so wrong but he lets her pull him out of his underwear. Just her fingers set him aflame. For a small moment, Bellamy forgets who they are, what they've done.

He forgets all but her name.

This isn't what he wanted, he thinks as Clarke wraps her lips around the head of his cock. His fingers tug her hair and he's so tired he doesn't even hold back his moans or his orgasm.

Within minutes, he comes all over Clarke's face. It's shameful and gross, (on him, never her). Lightning strikes and Bellamy chooses to focus on the thunder, the way it rumbles through him a couple seconds later.

He sags against the tree, relishing in how a knot digs into his shoulder. Shame courses through Bellamy, making his eyes latch onto a dripping branch so he doesn't have to watch Clarke wipe her face, spitting out what she couldn't swallow.

Whatever that was, it wasn't some sexy affair. He enjoyed it, sure, but it sickeningly reminds him of that time with Raven.

Bellamy never wanted that with Clarke, _never._

Defeated, beaten, and ignoring how it scrapes his back, Bellamy slides down the tree to the roots. He listens to the _pitter-patter_ of the rain for a content moment, knocking his head back against the trunk. Rotting wood incenses his nose. Clarke kneels in front of him, hands stained red and shaking. Her hair flaps in the spray of the wind and her eyes glisten at him.

He can't. He just can't look at her.

What he just let her do for him, it's so wrong, so him. Selfish, leaching, sad.

Clarke stands abruptly, shoulders heavy and begins to back away. "I'm _sorry_. I was trying- I'm sorry."

In his attempt to avoid shame, he's cast her off and isolated her. He's such an idiot. Bellamy grabs her wrist just before she's out of reach, dragging her down with him.

(He's always dragging her down with him.)

She collapses into his lap, hiding her face in his shoulder. They are so distraught, they don't even zip up his jeans. It rains and pours and the thunder shakes them. They freeze beneath a tree.

Bellamy wraps his arms around her, and they cry, and they sob and fuck, if he could just do _one thing right._

(He has four people to bury.)

..

Lexa kom Trikru is not a fan of them, not of Bellamy anyway.

She quite likes Clarke, he notices. The strong woman taps her thrown with humble disinterest. It worsens when they mention Praimfaya and the bunker. Her eyes set aflame, and she strategically picks up a knife—not to threaten—so they know it's there.

"We have six months," Clarke elaborates, taking a step forward to settle in front of their people. He steps next to her. It's sickening how much politics relies on appearances.

Immediately, every clan is quarrelling over who deserves that bunker.

"We never should have told them," Bellamy whispers, pressing his hand into Clarke's back as Trishanakru's chief spits on Skaikru's place amongst them; she literally _spits_ , far too close to Clarke for Bellamy.

It's amazing how they're accepted when they're needed but never again.

Lexa slams her knife into the carved arm of her thrown. "The thirteenth clan is part of the Coalition. An attack against them is an attack against us _all_." The brutish woman who spits too much cowers back. They can be civil, but it's so much harder than pointing fingers.

A conclave is presented by Octavia and Lincoln. Traditions are traditions and they will be upheld. The terms are agreed to.

Every clan presents their fighter, and when it's Skaikru's turn, Lexa makes a suggestion. "Bellamy Blake, will you guard your people?"

"He always will, but these are not his strengths." He ought to be offended, but she's right. Bellamy and her discussed Lincoln—much to Octavia's chagrin—who had agreed to fight for them.

"Love is weakness, Clarke of the Sky People," the commander says from her throne, playing with her knife.

"Maybe," is all Clarke adds, because there is no right answer to that debate. "Call me weak then." Bellamy's eyes widen, but before he can overthink the implications, his world falls apart.

"I'll fight."

Octavia steps forward, brushing Lincoln's hand away. Bellamy startles. He stands alert, instantly prepared to volunteer in her place.

"Octavia—" he starts.

"Octavia Blake will fight for us." Clarke is tense when she says it, resolute. Bellamy sees so much red; an empty feeling runs through his veins as the clans whisper at their separated front.

"Clarke?"

Bellamy grabs her wrist softly, forcing himself to believe there's been some misunderstanding. Her eyes don't give him that sweet excuse, that beautiful _it's-not-what-it-looks-like._

It's exactly what it looks like.

"They'd never let Lincoln fight for Skaikru. They want us to lose." Her voice is quiet, only for his ears. Clarke's eyes plead with him. His grip on her wrist tightens, but she doesn't waver.

Through gritted teeth, he argues, "so let _me."_

She pales, finally ripping her arm away from him. The room stifles and he feels embarrassment, icily warm, prickling his cheeks in shame. His sister looks at Clarke, who looks back. This was _planned_. His head fills with air, knocking him into a stupor.

"No," she says. He trusted her, put his faith in her and she just… she just-

"-So be it." Lexa stands. " _Oso throu daun ogeda."_ The meeting adjourns, and it's a fight to the death.

..

After she is properly prepared, they get their goodbyes.

"You were the girl under the floor. Use that." He pulls Octavia in for a hug. It might be the last time his baby sister is in his arms.

Because of Clarke.

"I chose this," she whispers, face painted black. Octavia pulls back, sword gleaming in its hilt. "I brought it up with Clarke." Her eyes used to gleam like that too.

His leather clad shoulders tense, because she's right behind him, blonde and beautiful and strong.

"She agreed to it," is all he offers, angry, and he knows she can hear him.

"Of course she did." Octavia pushes the hair from his forehead glancing over his shoulder to the girl he refuses to look at. "Who else was she gonna send? _Monty?"_ His little sister got her comedic timing from him for sure.

"Me."

Octavia's lips press thinly together, latching a stray piece of hair. She casually pulls it from her mouth.

"Like she'd ever send _you,_ Bell." Her eyes focus over his left shoulder. Octavia pushes by him. He turns.

 _("I love you,"_ he wanted to say.)

She stops in front of Clarke, whose hands fiddle with the sleeves of her coat. Her apology sits on her tongue, as heavy as blackened clouds.

Octavia pulls Clarke into her arms, and fucking _damnit_.

Her blonde hair is messy and ruined and her eyes are red-rimmed. Octavia whispers into Clarke's ear, and he hates himself for wanting to know what she said.

He stares. Her gaze meets his, and Bellamy rips his eyes from hers without lingering.

Octavia is called toward Indra. Hesitantly, she looks at him. This is it. _I love you. I love you. I love you._ She's gone.

"Bellamy..."

Clarke touches his shoulder, spiking his anger. He spins on her. For the first time since he met her, Bellamy Blake can keep his eyes off Clarke Griffin. She doesn't make it easy, with her guilty looks and her need to touch him.

He pulls himself away, again and again.

"If anything happens to her," he's said it before, and he'll say it again, "you and me are gonna have problems."

It hurts a little more this time.

..

Octavia wins; she _wins_ , and she lets everyone in.

The clans each got 102 spots, to compensate for Skaikru's missing twelve. They accept it with near grace, or as much as they'd ever give Skaikru (as they like to spit).

"Wonkru," Octavia tells Lexa.

Bellamy bunks as far away from Clarke as possible, refusing to talk to her. Clarke Griffin no longer has a place in his life. She seems to get on fine with this decision of his. She runs back and forth between medical, Lexa, Octavia, and Lexa, not once attempting to talk to him.

How come she never gives a shit? He's falling apart at the seams.

..

They are arguing, finally. She ambushes him in the Council's office.

They scream at one another and then grovel back and forth. She hurt him, betrayed him. If Octavia had died, he would've never recovered.

She tells him, "if Octavia died, we wouldn't be here to argue, and—" her teeth clamp down and he really wants to know the end of that sentence, so he can rip her apart.

"And _what_ , Clarke?"

All they do is fight, dancing around the topic neither of them can brave. This topic. He can't stay away and he can't stop being angry. He wants her in his life, even when he bunks with Miller halfway across the bunker. It's a death sentence.

Her feet stomp away, attempting to pass him.

He grabs her elbow, nearly tearing her plaid button-up. Clarke's eyes fiercely meet his, ready to rip her arm from his grasp. He kisses her before she can stop him. Her eyes bolt open, but Clarke doesn't resist.

It seems she doesn't even think about resisting.

He flips her around to face away from him, locking her wrists at her tail bone. He pushes her hands down to the ground, making her back arch. Bellamy latches his lips onto Clarke's exposed neck.

"And what? It's not your _fault?"_

She grits her teeth, but he pushes her forward, releasing her hands and she hits the desk, bending herself over in an attempt to catch herself. His hands pull at her belt loops, ripping her jeans down past her knees with her panties. His fingers settle just outside her opening as her hands hold the edge of the desk, white-knuckled.

He realizes she hasn't said a thing.

"Clarke?" he prods, lifting his eyes to her face. She isn't looking at him. "Oh Jesus, _Clarke_." Roughly, he pulls her pants up, pushing off the desk and away from her. "I-" he nearly pukes; he can fucking taste it. He didn't ask; he just forced and practically—he practically..."You were just gonna let me?" He nearly sobs and his hands shake. She turns her gaze on him.

God, what happened to shooting stars and sweet kisses and— _fuck_ , what did he just do?

"Hey. You're fine." Her fingers caress his face. Why is she so soft with him? They argue—scream, torment, berate, just like the dropship days—and then they do this and it's so _unhealthy_.

"It's not the first time you've done that to make me feel better." He knows he shouldn't mention that; her eyebrows lift and her cheeks pink.

He doesn't realize right away that she's kissing him again, just as roughly as he had. Clarke even kicks her pants off, pulling his wrists into oblivion. She hops on the desk.

It's the clatter of pencils that finally breaks his hollow stare.

With aggression, his lips descend on hers. "Answer the question," he commands, forcing her legs open and she whimpers

His fingers fill her up, thrusting steadily as he kisses her everywhere his lips can touch. Clarke gasps, dragging her hands down his torso to his own pants, and just like that time they never speak of, she unbuttons him, pulling his dick from his boxers.

Bellamy imagined his first time inside her would be a slow affair, on that hill just outside camp. It'd be the middle of the night and he'd tell her all the constellations and their tales before kissing her.

He never thought he'd be so angry and rough, and he never thought it'd be right after the world ended, right after she condemned his sister.

"I can deal with you mad at me," she says. He grunts angrily in response, finally thrusting into her. The pencils on the desk shake with the impact. Clarke gasps into Bellamy's lips. "I can't-" he bites her neck- "I can't deal with you dead."

Her quivering fingers unbutton her shirt. " _I hate you."_

Her eyes are so blue, beautiful, so honestly sorry. They flash with hurt.

"You went behind my back," he says. He slams into her so hard she jolts back on the desk, gasping.

She neglects the half-finished buttons, grabbing his hand with hers. Clarke brings it to her lips in a sweet gesture. He startles out of rhythm and his eyes meet hers for a moment.

So blue.

She can't deal with him dead. She can't—Clarke threw his sister to the wolves because she couldn't deal with doing it to him. That's not her choice to make. His eyes harden, flinching hers away. This is the first time, ever, she hasn't been able to meet his gaze head on. The first time she couldn't mirror his intensity. The mirror shatters.

He thrusts into her hard, and he thinks his jeans chafe her inner thigh. Bellamy doesn't care. She sobs, bringing her fingers up to her shirt.

Her goddamn shirt. Red, black, and stubborn.

The last three refuse her, so he grabs them, and he fucking rips. The rip echoes, buttons clattering to the floor. He thrusts again, too hard to feel good—and again—too soft to make it go away.

Bellamy tears the stupid garment over her head, tossing it into the unknown.

His fingers push at her bra, sliding the strap over her shoulders. He pulls it down to her stomach by wire as he bucks, tearing some of the black lace. It would have been easy to unlatch it, but he knows the wire will dig into her skin.

He wants her to care, to know how much she broke him. He wants her to feel it.

Yet, he's the one crying; the tears pour down his face as he fucks her mercilessly. Drops trail down from her ear, to her jaw and collar. They sink into her hair too.

_Pathetic._

His fingers bruise her bouncing nipples, and his lips bully hers, but she pushes back, kicking and fighting him but not saying no, quite the opposite.

His rhythm picks up, and he's pounding in and out of her, crushing every piece of skin he touches. She gasps. His fingers find her clit between her legs. Her arms squeeze around his neck, hugging into his shoulder as she bites his ear.

"I'm sorry," she whispers. It's soft, so juxtaposed. "I'm so-" she moans, _"sorry."_

Bellamy feels everything she touches and it's too much.

Her walls begin to flutter around him. She comes with a screech, thrusting her hands under his shirt to claw his back. The pride he feels at making her orgasm is primal.

It has to be.

He spills into her, pleasure pouring over him with her fingers as they hug him upright. Bellamy falls forward, leaning into her and forcing her onto her back. Red marks litter her chest and neck.

His back is bleeding; shame fills him, (so much for ignoring her). He begins to slide out, but Clarke locks her ankles behind his knees.

He falls right back in.

"I had a choice," she breathes, chest heaving, "between watching you die, and then dying, or watching Octavia die, and then dying." Her ankles drop, like permission to pull out of her, to leave her there in a pile of shame. "I chose, and I don't regret that."

Clarke willingly forced him to be witness to his sister's possible execution, purely because she couldn't be witness to his.

"It wasn't your choice to make."

He sits her up too softly for how angry he is, pulling out of her too harshly for how much he cares.

After zipping up his pants, Bellamy grabs her clothes and throws them at her. She catches the shirt, but the jeans hit her knees, heaping on the floor.

His eyes follow them, tracing the denim, because why look at her? Why? That's the question. Why does he still care about her? ( _Love her.)_ There. His mind said it and his mouth never will. _Love_ , oh how bitter it tastes. He used to think she was too good to love him, too pure, with her doctor's hands and her kind, tiny smiles.

(The ones she wore when no one else could. They were like her forgiveness, born from nothing and given when it wasn't deserved.)

Now, he realizes, _fuck_ , she has flaws, a demon-child bracketed by angel hair and precious eyes. She isn't just her mercy-kills, or her graveyards for all the people of the earth.

Clarke is a massacre maker.

Bellamy still fucking loves her though, but he never loved her because she was _perfect_.

Clarke hugs the shirt to her bruising chest desperately, pulling her lips downwards. Her eyes meet his, shining so vulnerably he might just break it.

"I _couldn't_ lose you." She's controlling, and always thinks she's right.

Her opinions are too strong. Her biases slap him in the face, but here he is, loving her, and not forgiving her, because he can't give forgiveness, not like she does.

(Not to her, or to himself.)

But he can love her to an unhealthy degree, with his soul and his body and his entire existence, because he doesn't just _half-care._ No, he has never done that. Ask Octavia, who he _killed_ for.

_His choice. His responsibility._

Bellamy Blake's entire existence relies on those he loves and it's sickening. Strip him of Clarke, of Octavia, and what is he? A violent and volatile, broken little toy with nothing to be his responsibility but his sins. Bellamy will never face those. He's content running.

He stares at her for a moment, examining how white her fingers turn with their grip. "I _can't_ lose you," she whispers again, broken.

 _Couldn't, can't._ A change in tense doesn't make it better.

He doesn't say a thing, doesn't know what to do, so he just leaves her there in that pile of shame to hug a shirt he ruined (because that's what he does).

Bellamy refuses to look back, knowing he'll get no satisfaction out of seeing the broken, flawed girl he left in his wake (because that's what he does _best_ ).

When he looks at her, it hurts. When he doesn't, it hurts. He loves his suffering as much as he loves her.

..

.

.

.


	4. first of the sky people

_**original diversion:** _

_**13:52:37** _

_**October 11, 2149** _

_**codename:** _

_**bellamy blake** _

_**iv. live for yourself** _

He never thought it would happen.

Bellamy is a man, clearly, indisputably, and she's beautiful, so yes he's _thought_ about it—in detail—but he never thought it would happen. She's the princess, who thinks she's better than him, than everyone. He's thought about shutting her up lots.

It's a purely sexual thing.

..

"You did good here, Bellamy," Clarke tells him softly, looking him in the eye.

He pours water on the final fire, extinguishing the home they've all spent weeks building. All that time, only to walk away.

Well, she walks. He stomps.

_("18 dead."_

_"82 alive.")_

The trek will be long and dreadful; sticks crack under their feet. The fear of the Grounders has everyone tense, huddling together. Raven limps along next to Finn; Clarke was barely able to save her, but they managed.

They always manage, so he can't fathom why they're leaving. This was their camp, their _home_.

Clarke walks next to Bellamy, withering in his silence. He likes to think so anyway, but honestly, she seems unaffected and that just pisses him off. She can withstand the angriest of his glares.

Every step she takes leaves a deeper imprint than everyone else; the world will never forget Clarke Griffin.

"I know you're worried about your sister." His chin juts at her aggressively, and he heaves his gun subtly. Unaffected she remains. "But we can start anew here, a life."

"I don't even know if she's alive, _Princess."_

"You said Lincoln took her to his healers. That's where they are." It's resolute in the way she clutches her wrists behind her back, cadencing her steps to his. "Live for yourself, Bellamy," she mutters, looking straight ahead, "and if not that, live for them." She nudges her nose toward their delinquents.

All eighty of them are his responsibility, (and her, if she'd ever be convinced that he doesn't completely want her dead.)

_Live for himself._

Bellamy can't fathom the idea; he's always living for others. His entire life was about orbiting Octavia, and now about protecting the hundred.

Last time he lived for himself, he broke a radio. Last time he lived for himself, three-hundred-and-twenty people died. He has a sudden urge to tell her that, spit it at her, but she knows.

She knows.

 _Live for himself._ Where exactly does he start? They fall into silence and Bellamy nearly forgets to be angry with her. He glances at her, tracing the blood staining her hair and splitting her lips.

Holy fuck.

He lives for her too. When—where did he start to care about her that much? She's loud, and annoying, and talks, and talks, but never when he wants her to.

(Must have been somewhere between, " _brave, Princess,"_ and _"I'm a monster._ ")

He spends the rest of the trip, flipping her words in his mind.

The smell assaults his nose first; it's salty and stinks like rotten socks, but the kids' excitement overflows even his system. Forest melts to beach in the blistering heat.

The white sand is littered with pebbles and rocks, he notices, tracing his gaze along the tree line.

(He's still on guard, because how does he stop?)

All eighty of the delinquents under their watch sprint into the water. Bellamy and Clarke remain on shore, side by side.

"'Find Luna'," she whispers. "What if the grounders follow us, Bellamy?"

In his hands, he clutches his rifle. There is nothing in hers, but somehow she feels just as powerful. He glances at her, and maybe it's the angle of the sun but she's tired today, eyes dark. This princess doesn't think she's better than anyone. She thinks she's responsible for everyone.

She is. He is. It sucks.

"What if they don't?" Optimism has never been his strong suit.

His eyes trace the trees, and back to her. She wistfully stares at the sea, but makes no move toward it. She wants to though. Her hands nearly itch.

She needs to live for herself too, stop taking care of everyone else. His rifle hits the sand. Ignoring her startled shouts, Bellamy throws her over his shoulder. His feet pick up sand as he runs headfirst into an army of children and waves. It's the closest he has ever been to her. The screams and cheers fill his ears.

The war is over; the Ark orbits dead in the sky; they wander the grounds, with nowhere to go.

"No stop!" _Splash_. His mouth fills with wet, blonde hair. The first thing he notices is how much the salt stings his eyes. He stands in heavy, soaked clothes, filtering through the whitenoise of wave-breaks and splashing kids for her voice.

The second thing he notices is how her eyes match the sea when she's chastising him.

"What is... _wrong_ with you?" She begins uselessly wringing her clothes, but her smile can't be mistaken.

Her body soaks, breathing it in. She's never looked more alive, pushing her wet hair over her head, behind her ears. This is where she wants to be. He's glad he tossed her in the water, even if his socks are wet and squishy. Clarke throws all her weight against him, and he doesn't even fight it. Bellamy goes underwater.

When he comes up for air, her eyes ( _her, her, her_ ) are the only thing he notices. He cares about her. He doesn't care how, or where, or when it happened.

It happened.

..

They set up tents the next morning, because "no, Jasper, we can't just sleep on the beach."

They didn't 'sleep' last night to be fair.

They spent long hours celebrating a successful absconsion, drinking and laughing because they're still teenagers. Except Bellamy, but Clarke called him an honorary teen and he scoffed, saying she's an honorary grandma. They fought about it, all night. She poured moonshine on him. He pulled her hair.

It was great.

Now, in the shaded heat, Clarke holds a branch between her fingers while Bellamy wraps fabric around it. They bicker a bit, dropping pieces and making mistakes but it's not too heated.

Not like it used to be; this feels like a friendship now, where you argue about how old a grandma is.

The kids around them are worse, growing frustrated with each other's incompetence. Even Monroe looks done with Sterling, who can't seem to fold a tarp without fucking it up.

Bellamy drags the fabric around her. Dodging under his arm, she starts talking about plans, because Clarke can never just chill. He wonders if 'chill' is even in her vocabulary. He mostly listens as she recites the same plans she'll forget to him: where the cabins will go, food storage, a clinic, a space for lumber. This, that, and this. Bellamy doesn't mind. She seems to relax when she does it, as much as someone with the world on their shoulders can.

She could put Atlas to shame, honestly.

He suggests things. She says no, pretending to think about it. It works out. His strengths lie in when they will start these plans. Bellamy mostly organizes the people, getting them where they need to go.

Right now, he listens, tying frayed strings.

He watches Clarke's excitement over a campfire, where it'll go, how it'll be an area for council. She smiles, anchoring an edge of the tent with a stick. He suggests an amphitheatre shape, saying it'd be good for announcements too. Clarke actually considers it, giving him a small smile. A satisfied rush trickles through him.

"Bellamy! Clarke!" Miller shouts, turning every tent makers' head. "Something's coming from the beach!"

Then, he hears it. A roaring, metallic sound echoes in from the water. _Whoosh_. The tent falls down. Clarke turns to him with scared eyes, strong ones.

"Get your rifle."

He's quick to hop over sticks and tarps, running to the bucket in the middle of camp. Raven guards it, finnicking with a radio. Her head rises, looking to the trees, through to the beach. "Sounds like a motor…"

"Great." He barely acknowledges her, pushing his hands into the bucket for a rifle. The metal is cold on his fingers, but the familiar sensation of the weapon is a comfort.

He pulls back the bolt, clicking out the shell. "Bullets or blanks?"

"Bullets," she answers and he's gone, running back to Clarke.

Teens rise to follow him. "Keep working!" Bellamy shouts, waving his arms to calm them. It doesn't work, but they do keep working. He nods at Clarke and they go. _They might not be hostile_. They might not be hostile, so Bellamy doesn't have to be hostile.

He's holding a gun; be powerful, not hostile. Clarke taught him that one.

Trees blend to breaking water. Seaweed caresses the edge of the wake, leaving permanently stained grains of sand. An object surfs over the waves toward them. It's not a big thing, metallic, rusty. Loud. Anxiety runs through him and he has to resist the urge to push Clarke behind him. _They might not be hostile._ She's strong anyway.

Still.

It slows, rippling waves. The buzz sputters out. A burly man hops off, splashing his feet into thigh high water, too far away to make out anything specific, like weapons, or a face.

"It's Lincoln," Clarke whispers, releasing her shoulders.

Bellamy's grip on his rifle slackens infinitely too. She steps up to the line of sand the ocean has met thousands of times.

He places himself next to her, calling, "where's Octavia?" Bellamy has priorities.

"You made it…" he murmurs, before shaking his head. "She's on the Rig." Lincoln drags his shins through heavy water toward them.

"The Rig?" Clarke asks, grabbing Bellamy's wrist softly. He nearly laughs, dropping the rifle to his side; he's not going to shoot Lincoln.

_Well…_

Another pair of feet smack the water with a wave. It's a woman, who's relatively tall and has wild brown hair. It seems to frizz like his own in this salty air. The woman walks toward them, carrying a passive kind of power. She reminds him of Clarke.

"Are you Luna?" Lincoln nods at Clarke's question.

"Why are you here?" Luna crosses her arms, like she already knows their answer.

"We're running from a war," Bellamy says passive-aggressively. Clarke ignores him, like always when he jabs at her, but she doesn't dispute him.

Luna's brow lifts. "There's nothing wrong with running."

Lincoln breaks into Trigedasleng next to Luna, leaving Bellamy and Clarke to glance and stare and discuss things with their eyes.

_"Can we trust her?"_

_"Lincoln trusts her, and Octavia trusts him."_ Clarke nods her head at him.

"We don't want war," Clarke says, sounding much more diplomatic than Bellamy ever could. The wake rises, catching his shoe and making him grumble because now his shoe is wet and it's going to pick up sand.

"I'm offering you sanctuary."

"Assimilation," Lincoln corrects. "Your people to our people."

Bellamy imagines his people in grounder garbs, running around with swords and spears.

His "no" is already on his tongue.

"What do you mean?" Good question, Clarke. Will they have to follow their religions, their customs?

"Octavia did well after her recovery, shown civility." Bellamy's shoulders raise. "Floukru is for those who want their fight to be over."

"She's saying she's in charge, and if you join us. You are our people and we're yours."

"No."

It comes out this time. He considers settling his gun in front of him, not to threaten them, but so they know it's there.

Powerful, not hostile.

"It's not a dictatorship, Bellamy," Lincoln amends, making him startle. He's never said Bellamy's name before, not around him anyway. It's always been "your brother". "You'll have a say in things, like everyone on the Rig."

"Will they be treated fairly?" Clarke is tense next to him.

"We will teach you all we know, and you may do the same." Luna crosses her arms. "I'm here because Lincoln's my friend. We don't fight wars."

_"Ogeda. Skaikru en Floukru."_

Clarke looks at Bellamy, and he already knows she wants to. They have the Hundred to think of, (eighty-two) and they don't know how to survive near the ocean, (or in general).

They are being offered peace, and a home. Clarke wants to take it.

"Okay." Bellamy turns to Lincoln, holding out his hand.

His eyes rise in recognition. He takes his hand into a shake, a strong one. Bellamy feels the scar on Lincoln's palm, and cringes. The screw he shoved through the grounder's tendons was cold, and still is, in a way. Lincoln smiles, crinkling his eyes in kindness.

Mutual assimilation it seems. The war is over.

..

It's called a "boat" apparently, or a " _floudon_ ". It's the namesake of their people.

They take kids by the 'boat'ful. It makes Bellamy a little uncomfortable, especially when they say no guns on deck.

Clarke and Bellamy are left to take down tents and pack up as those who helped hop on Lincoln's boat and vanish. _Lincoln_ , who he whipped, who has fucked his sister, who seems to love her.

Deep into the night, their people go. He can't believe they're betting the lives of their people on the fact that Lincoln loves his sister. The roaring sound echoes in with three boats again at daybreak, glowing orange in the sun

"That's it," he murmurs to Clarke, standing next to their bucket of guns. Ten people left on the beach, and then they're in the hands of Lincoln and Luna.

Others might call them stupid, but these kids have such faith in them it's sickening.

Four kids get onto one boat. Then, four on the next, leaving Bellamy and Clarke to the last with Lincoln and Luna. Lincoln strides out of the water, dropping down to grab their bucket of guns. "You can't leave these for _Trikru_."

" _Trikru?_ " Clarke asks.

"'Grounders'," he mocks, lifting the heavy bucket, and waddling to the boat.

Clarke and Bellamy follow, trudging through the water. Their pant legs soak. Lincoln heaves the bucket to Luna, before jumping in, and swaying the boat. Clarke crawls over the edge. Bellamy hops up next, squishing his soggy feet in discomfort.

The boat is rusted, and small. Two rows of benches hold it together, latching onto the ribs of the vehicle.

It's cool, honestly.

He sits next to Clarke, who has planted herself formally on the bench, pushing her palms into her wet knees. A Grounder— _a man_ —pulls a cord, stuttering the motor. They take off, leaving the beach. A trail rises behind them, white over the water, disappearing after moments, like they were never even there.

Maybe they never should've been.

For a long time, they sit quietly, listening to the hum of the engine.

"Why are you helping us?" Clarke yells over the wind. Her hair whips around, nearly smacking Bellamy in the face.

"Lincoln vouched for you," Luna yells back. They whipped him. He whipped him, and Lincoln vouched for them.

"Your people will have access to Trig lessons if they'd like," Lincoln shouts. Lincoln has never yelled, if Bellamy remembers, not even through the torture. Even yelling, he resonates a certain kindness. "Our language," he clarifies.

"Pull your weight," is all Luna adds.

Silence continues, and the sun steadily rises giving colour to the grey. In the horizon, a structure appears, a platform, standing on three large columns. It sprouts orange cranes, hanging hooks on a wire.

An oil rig. Bellamy read about them, and he watched a couple of videos of them spilling over in Earth History. The closer they get, the more he sees. A dock appears beside one of the columns. Even though the sun has risen fully, the lanterns on top gleam. A lighthouse too.

The engine stutters out as they pull up to the dock. They drift into it. With practised ease, Luna tosses a rope around a protruding bar, tightening it into a complicated knot.

"Lincoln's word can't be worth that much."

Come on, Clarke, just take the blessing. He wants to grin though, because of course, Clarke doesn't believe in blessings. Blessings indicate luck. For her, things are earned. She gives things out though.

"We take people in." Luna rises in the boat, disinterested. "Anyone, no matter who," she steps onto the dock, an ant compared to the oil rig, "even eighty criminals."

..

The ladder climb is embarrassingly exhausting.

He blames it on the air. Too thick. It tastes like oil, and smells like that potash shit from Earth Skills. Rusty is the best way to describe it, a good layer of orangey bronze sticks to everything.

They roam over the grids of metal along the side of the rig. His steps feel oddly hollow, a clanking kind of _thud_.

Clarke doesn't seem to mind, prancing and banging her feet in curiosity. _Thud. Thud._ She grins her way up the stairs. The steps are outlined in barbed-wire. They walk to the main platform of Floukru's Rig. The sun bruises his eyes.

Corner to corner, the main deck is lined with vendors and barrel fires. It's nothing short of alive, stained in oil and breathing.

He sees their people gathered in a triage of sorts across the Rig, up a set of stairs to a new platform. Lincoln leads them through the market place. Clarke wanders next to Bellamy in endless sonder, clutching her hands behind her back. She catches him looking at her before he can catch himself. Their gaze holds strong.

"It's beautiful," she murmurs, tracing her eyes to a darker skinned woman selling some pottery a couple feet away.

Kids feed birds, scraping graffiti into the metal of the oil rig. They laugh when they see Bellamy watching. He's pretty sure they mock him in Trig before running off with Lincoln's glare.

"Most of these people are passing by. Not many settle here," Lincoln tells her. Clarke nods absentmindedly, tilting her head at the wonder.

"To our people?" Bellamy asks. She nods. It's back to their real world.

They trail up the steps to their people, who huddle together in groups around barrel fires. Their gear is piled around, and chatter halts the moment they see their leaders.

These kids have so much faith in them.

"This is our home now." Clarke stands tall in the sun, in the sea, in the fear of eighty children. "We can make a life here."

..

Octavia turns out to be fine.

She finds him a couple hours later as they set up tents. (Will they ever stop with the tents?) She glows, hair braided, wrapping around her head in a crown. Grounder— _Floukru_ garbs are beautiful, yellows and oranges, light over her shoulders. Octavia launches onto him for a hug, a great big pick-her-up-and-swing-in-circles hug.

Suddenly, wrapped in her arms, exhaustion hits him, beating down with the sun. He sets her down.

"Welcome!" She laughs, giggling like she's six again. " _Monin!_ " She sounds so happy.

"I'm glad you're okay," Clarke offers, sounding just as tired.

How long has it been since they slept?

Octavia smiles at Clarke kindly, a little challengingly. "I'm to show you around. Lincoln's fishing."

So she does, leading them to the latrines, the lighthouse, a shipping container yard filled with climbing kids, and the canteen.

The delinquents are silenced with infatuation.

"We have Rigs all over the ocean," she motions her arm to the water at her side, passing a crane, trailing the horizon. "A couple villages in Africa and Europe," Bellamy nods in understanding, "this is _Floukru_ 's Capitol."

When she's done, they're back at their meagre camp. Octavia mentions getting Lincoln for supper.

To everyone's surprise—not really—it's fish. The canteen consists of a buffet and sitting around blazing barrels. He and Clarke travel through with their plates. Their people segregate themselves off, claiming a barrel fire to themselves.

It's subtle, but a well known gesture in the history of humanity.

This is truly the place for outcasts. Only outcasts welcome outcasts, but sometimes not even then. Bellamy has the words in his throat as he watches her, nearly begging her with his eyes to sit beside Raven. Clarke walks right by their people.

"It's safer on our side," he murmurs, and for a horrifying second, she looks disappointed in him.

He hates that look on her face. (It's the same one he saw on his mother, on O, on every pitying face as a janitor.)

She turns around to face him, holding her plate level. "There are no sides."

And so she walks to the next closest fire, plopping herself next to a Floudoner man. Bellamy glances at Raven and Finn, who look on curiously.

Bellamy follows Clarke. She wants him to say that he's with them; he won't say it, but he'll stand at her side.

Bellamy sits next to Clarke, and her gaze scans over him with warmth. The man's cold green eyes do not do the same.

" _Hei, supta?"_ The man asks. At least, Bellamy assumes it's a question due to his tone of voice. It's also condescending, but he could be hearing things.

Clarke smiles tiredly, giving a thumbs up. He raises a scarred brow, in question at the gesture. She waves it off. Clarke starts talking slowly, but Bellamy can't really hear her over his discomfort.

The man doesn't understand her. Eventually, Clarke pitters out too and they sit in silence, picking at their salmon.

"This is going great," he mutters to Clarke teasingly. She gives him that familiar grim quirk of lip.

The Floudoners speak to each other as though Bellamy and Clarke aren't present, laughing at their clear lack of understanding.

"It couldn't go better," Clarke whispers to him a little tensely. He laughs.

An elderly man wanders into the canteen. He holds an instrument of the string variety: a violin. His bones are chiselled, light skin wrinkled like old laundry. He seems like the free kind of person, in the clouds.

Enamoured, their people watch.

The Floudoners do not seem shocked, but they still watch the man as he strides in yellow garments to the centre of the canteen to a stage of plywood.

It creaks under him. His kind face looks to the new people in his midst, as though shocked they were there.

The man scans the groups they subconsciously made and tsks. He tilts his head a little shakily at Jasper, pointing his bow. Jasper chokes on his fish. " _Songplei?_ " He breaks, "any song?"

Jasper looks around, nervously fidgeting to goggles on his head. "Uh… Radioactive?" A collection of groans and complaints crawl over the sky people. "What? It's a good song!" He crosses his arms.

The man grins like elderly tend to do, toothy, warm and judgmental all at once.

"It is," Clarke whispers next to Bellamy, startling him. He glances at her. She's ignored her plate of fish, so enraptured by the man she leans forward on her crossed legs.

"It is." She grins.

The man nods, straightening his back, before yelling kindly, " _Skaikru gaf in Radzfou!_ " Another mixed reaction of groans and hoots picks up.

But then the music starts, archaic and straight to your soul. It's slower than the original, a little more… creeping. The clarity it spikes through the room makes Bellamy's exhaustion leak away, if only for a minute.

Then, the man stops, sighing. " _Bel au._ Sing!" He starts again, swaying with each stroke of bow.

The humming starts first, and it starts with Clarke right next to him. " _Whoa-oh-ohh_." It's very soft, slow, and awkward.

No one joins her. She doesn't care.

Then, Jasper falls in and then Monty. Then, the green-eyed man next to Bellamy. Like a crashing wave, everyone collapses into it, and when the lyrics split between English and Trigedasleng, no one bats an eye.

" _I'm breathing in the chemicals-"_ a chain of horrid gasps fills the room; the violin cuts for a second as the man laughs. " _I'm breaking in, shaping up!"_

Honestly, half of it is mumbling. Bellamy isn't even singing, but Clarke pokes him and pokes him. Pushing her hand away, he shakes his head. She pouts.

He feels a little bad.

" _Welcome to the new age, to the new age!"_ It resonates right through the canteen, picking up with the beat of Bellamy's heart. With the beat of everyone's. Hands begin to clap in rhythm and he decides he can at least do that. She sings and she shouts to encourage him, looking a little more disappointed with every word.

Bellamy hates that look on her face, so much. He sighs, leaning close to her.

" _I'm radioactive, radioactive."_

Clarke laughs, tiny and bright, breaking from her belting. His cheeks pink. The song continues, absorbing the sentimentality of unity.

"I'm tired," she whispers and he nods his head. They both are. She hits the last line hard. " _Radioactive! Radioactive!"_

It's a great song, he decides, if it can make a girl like Clarke finally breathe in the fucking chemicals.

..

The songs continue, but he and Clarke leave, deciding the organization of tents is priority.

The hollow thud under his feet is nearly normal now as he and Clarke trudge to their platform. Music echoes behind them, well, more like out of tune voices and the occasional hymn of violin.

 _Floukru_ , that's them now.

He drags himself up the stairs, eyes drooping. It's all hitting him. The salty wind brushes his neck as he looks out at the ocean's horizon.

When they make it to their plateau, Miller and Monroe are setting up tents, _again_. Have they been here all day?

Miller and his wordless loyalty. "Go eat," Bellamy commands, startling them.

They nod, but, "after this tent, Bellamy." Miller doesn't usually argue but he seems set on this.

"We've got it, Miller. Go have fun," Clarke prods, stepping forward to take the post from Monroe.

Bellamy represses a groan, because tents suck.

Monroe and Miller exchange places with them, and now Bellamy and Clarke have to finish up the fortieth and final tent. With tired hands and seldom talking, they silently thank Miller and Monroe for staying out of the fun to get this done.

"People are gonna have to share," he murmurs as they finish it up.

"They're used to it."

"I can hear the complaints already."

"Always."

He walks to grab the crate of blankets, settling it in front of the tent. His tent, he decides. It's not the biggest one, but menial things like that don't matter anymore. They haven't since the dropship. Clarke takes out all the blankets, resting them on an unrolled tarp.

She sits on the crate, rubbing her ankles with a sad sigh.

The dark of night creeps in with his exhaustion. They've been awake well over 72 hours, no doubt. People start sorting their way in, passing by and picking tents.

Bellamy watches Clarke handout blankets equally, tallying their numbers. _Sterling, John, John, John, they have a lot of Johns, Monroe, Miller, Bree, Peter…_ He puts his hands on her tense shoulders, massaging her stress.

It's almost over. _Jasper, Monty, Raven…_

_79, 80._

She sighs again, a better sigh. Her chin tucks into his knuckles. Happiness and relaxation look good on Clarke. A familiar face walks up to them, Octavia, her lips pulling into her infinite smile.

"You did good tonight," she says to Clarke. "Luna's giving you two weeks to settle." Clarke grabs and holds out a blanket, but Octavia shakes her head. "I'm with Lincoln."

It doesn't hurt that much, not too much. (Bellamy took care of her for _years_.) If she wants to go with Lincoln, again, that's okay.

It's her life.

It does hurt, it does, but not in a betraying way. "That's great, O." Tension leaves Octavia's shoulders, trickling into a smile. She turns to leave, but gives him a little wave. Clarke turns her head, grabbing the hands on her shoulders.

"You okay?"

Lanterns ignite. The lighthouse too. The world is ablaze and he's doused in water. "Fine." She squeezes his fingers, aware that he's lying.

One blanket is left, an orange one from that bunker. It feels like a millennia ago by now.

It sits at her feet. Over. It's over. There's nothing left to do.

She rises from the crate. Bellamy turns to the tent behind him, wandering inside. There's nothing in it but the glow of the lighthouse and the 'x' imprints patterned on the metal floor.

Then, he stops. _Clarke._

He turns around, poking his head outside. There she is, leaning against the crate, knocked out with nowhere to go. Around her, an orange thermal blanket snuggles.

Damnit, Clarke.

She's always taking care of everyone else before herself. She sets up tents, saves them all, and gives them a home.

Clarke didn't even get a thank you, or a tent, nor did she ask for either.

Someone has to take care of her the way she does with everyone else, (with him). He drags his deadweight to her, toe nudging her side. Clarke's eyes squint open to his held out hand. Without question, she takes it, and he pulls her to her feet. Clarke's blanket weighs on her shoulders as he tugs her inside the tent.

No mattress, no anything. They collapse and she's asleep in seconds.

Bellamy wishes he could sleep like that, instant and soundless. He snores, and takes up hours of his night with restless tussling. He wakes up at the slightest sound, the smallest movement.

He always had too, with O.

Random inspections could drop at any second, like marbles scattering across the floor. (There are night terrors too, the kinds he never talks about, the kinds that grip his soul.) He sits up slowly, peeling his jacket off his shoulders. Bellamy toes his boots, and he pulls hers off too. Clarke gives a relieved sigh with each foot, curling in a little bit more.

It's over.

There's nothing left to do but sleep (and maybe live).

..

She doesn't sleep as well as he thought, not at all. She's quick to close her eyes, and fall into a coma, but Clarke never wakes up rested.

Sometimes, she wakes up with that look on her face.

 _18 dead._ That look says.

Neither of them sleep well, it seems. Sleeping beside each other doesn't help. Having someone to hold though, someone warm to curl into, someone you trust.

It makes all the difference, even if he still wakes up exhausted five times a night.

..

Organization begins within the next couple days, sorting over layouts and moving a few tents (again). Bellamy spends a few days shirtless, darkening his skin to unprecedented levels.

Clarke isn't so lucky, burning up like a lobster.

She even gets heat stroke on day three, leaving him to bring her water and a bucket as she dry-heaves. Deliriously, she chatters and it makes him a little nervous.

Bellamy goes to Luna about it, and she chuckles like they're friends.

"Why didn't you mention it sooner? We have aloe vera, sunscreen too." He has to ask what both of them are, too openly skeptical. She rolls her eyes. "Bellamy, you are my people. Tell me these things."

He nods, and she tells him to go to the greenhouse.

He does, wandering his way up a higher platform, to a building of glass. Bellamy pushes inside, smelling an odd mix of mint and lemon. It's... green. That's the simplest description.

A woman in torn overalls waves to him. She turns back to her tomatoes.

"Welcome to the Green House!" Monty pokes his head over a table, startling Bellamy. His eyes catch on a patch of plants in the corner. Is that marijuana? Monty follows his gaze. "What? It's _medicinal_ ," he whines. Bellamy's eyes widen.

Well, it's not illegal on the Rig.

"You have aloe vera? Clarke's got some really bad burns."

..

The next day, Clarke is lucid, nursing a burn and glaring at his blessed complexion. She's abandoned her henleys. A dirty tank top rests on her wide shoulders where her skin has peeled.

In her brief absence from the real world, he moved some crates into the tent, and a couple maps.

The bedding of furs seemed to be her favourite addition. She has been curling up next to him in the middle of the night, cool sea breezing through their flap of a door. They haven't exactly talked about it, but they're leaders, kind of, and it makes sense they'd bunk. Where else can she go? His insomnia hasn't gone away, but it's better when someone cards fingers through his hair. Specifically, it's better when Clarke does it.

It doesn't make a lot of sense.

He's always enjoyed having a body to hold on to after his touched starved youth. Any girl would do, plus they usually had some fun beforehand. Then, he started cuddling with Clarke, fully clothed. He likes it.

Tonight is no different. He curls in, facing her, and the salty breeze blows in their door.

It's weird, he knows, and it's new, but all they do is lay there in the dark of night, tracing the scars, traumas, and birthmarks. For a while she tries to count his freckles.

"It's gotta be a billion." Clarke heaves, giving up.

"Gotta be." His lips quirk.

Then, he counts Clarke's, pushing his thumbing into the beauty mark above her lip.

"One," he whispers.

"There's more than one."

It happens sometimes. This underlying tease. It never leads anywhere, but it's fun. She grins at him, flushing a little in the orange glow of the tent.

"Oh, really?"

She ignores his prod, lifting her own thumb to the scar the carved above his lip. "The corner of the floor panel," he explains. "We were in a rush that time."

She smiles sadly. "You must've been so young."

"Six."

Bellamy doesn't exactly understand what it is he and Clarke have. They touch, and linger. Words feel ready to fall from his lips but not a syllable has formed. It's in the dark, a wordless contract. It's just something he needs. Contact. Care. Not being used for his body, nor is he required to get something done.

No, they just lay together. She has heat-stroke. He's an anchor to hold on to.

..

After Clarke's quick recovery, she finds a spot amongst the healers, cementing their place in Floukru like no one else can. Her skills are invaluable. She shares her anatomic expertise while they explain their herbs to her.

He's proud, moving crates of copper and gears.

Across main-deck, she glances at him, and he gives her a dramatic thumbs up. She flips him off. Bellamy gets a kick out of the situation when the healer next to her asks what it means.

He meets a girl that day, or is harassed by one.

She's a pretty girl, brown-haired and green-eyed, who can speak mediocre English. He recognizes her intentions almost immediately. It makes him a little bit uncomfortable, because she's touchy, like really touchy. She holds him up too, leaving Miller and Lincoln to most of the hard work. Bellamy feels bad about that. If he wasn't working, he'd be interested, probably, possibly. _Not._

He tries to tell her that, but either her English is a little more rudimentary than he thought, or she's ignoring his rejection.

He feels really bad about not knowing her name; he thinks it's Lila. Miller seems to take pity on him, laughing while he says, "he has a girlfriend."

" _Hich op,"_ Lincoln translates, and the girl's face notably falters.

That's when Bellamy sees Clarke walking towards them. His heart picks up. Three bowls are held precariously to her chest but she doesn't meet his gaze. Clarke has brought the three of them lunch for the past couple days. It's no different today. She sets the bowls on the metal table next to them.

"Hi, Miller," she starts, sitting against the table.

"Hey, Clarke." They chat idly, and she engages Lincoln too.

She acts like it's normal, like her usual routine _isn't_ whispering little jokes she thought of throughout the day to Bellamy. He's kind of waiting to hear one, pathetically.

Lila picks up Bellamy's bowl, pushing it into his hands. Clarke finally looks at him, and he's caught staring, bowl in hand. He swears hurt flickers on her face.

Gracing him the most forced smile he's ever seen from her, she turns back to Lincoln.

" _Yumi beda choj up._ You eat, yes?" Lila holds up some salmon like he should eat it from her hand.

He gives her a strained grimace.

Miller snickers behind her. Lincoln crosses his arms, looking entertained but not quite laughing. She keeps talking for a while. He zones out for a minute or two.

"Where's Clarke?" he asks, staring right passed Lila.

"Clarke. _Houmon?_ " Lila mutters.

" _Sha,_ " Lincoln says.

"I gotta go," and he does go, nowhere and everywhere. Bellamy wanders the Rig for nearly the rest of the day, looking for Clarke but not admitting he is.

He finally sees her near dusk, sitting on a crane fifty paces away.

It's orange and old, erecting from the rig. Clarke climbed the rungs all the way up. She walked it like the plank to sit at the end. He considers climbing to join her, and maybe asking what's wrong. He sees how she glows in the sun, looking contemplative and sad. The wind picks up her hair. Picks up her soul, or the pieces left of it.

She needs time to just _be_ , he decides from the bottom of the crane. He pockets his hands and walks to their tent.

It takes her a while, but eventually she shows. Bellamy rolls over to look at her—because of course he wasn't sleeping—maybe smile a little, and ask about her day. Then, he sees the furs in her arms, stacking up to her chin and hanging down to her knees. Her eyes stare dejectedly, making her way to the opposite side of the tent. His gaze follows her. She starts laying them down in a row. Someone kicks him in the stomach.

She's making a new bed. She- but- why? He sits up.

Finally, Clarke seems to notice his stare. "We have enough furs for two beds now." She pulls off her boots and lies down, facing away from him.

They've had enough furs for over a week. It cracks his heart in half, and he swallows his tongue. He wants to say something, but his words are muddled. He wants to ask why, wants to know what's wrong, but unlike Lila, Bellamy understands when someone doesn't want to talk to him.

Rolling over, he huffs.

He didn't know there was a problem with one bed, and it's all he can think about. His hair prickles with the cool wind and he misses her breathing on his shoulders. It was helping him, the unorthodox sleeping habits. Like an idiot, he thought it was mutual.

He looks over at her and she's fast asleep.

..

The two beds stay, and he gets used to sleeping alone again. Those first few days were really shitty. His hands look for comfort that isn't there and he hears her jolt awake in the middle of the night, but-

Two beds stay, and she never tells him what's wrong. He never asks.

Octavia wakes him up in the morning at the end of their two weeks, toeing his face. He rolls on his back to glare at her. Clarke laughs at him from across the tent, washing her hair with warmed bucket water.

"Ready for a Trig lesson?" He groans, decidedly not ready. "I'll braid your hair when you're done, Clarke."

She brightens immediately. "I'd like that." Octavia and Clarke, braiding each other's hair. It's weird and new. He lays in bed while O settles behind Clarke, running her fingers through the blonde's hair. He feels a stupid spike of envy. His fingers used to thread her hair. She used to sigh into _his_ hands.

Then, she just didn't.

Bellamy rolls over, trying to steal five more minutes that will give him nothing anyway.

..

Turns out, he's shit at Trigedasleng.

It's not the understanding part. It's the pronunciation part. Clarke, his partner for the lesson, does not hide her mocking. Her hair is braided back into a bun, flyaways curling around her head.

" _Ai laik Klark kom Floukru."_ 'I am Clarke of the Boat people.' He can understand fine, three days in.

"I like _Belomi_ comb Flew crow… flow crew- fuck." She starts laughing, and Lincoln smirks at him as he wanders the deck.

Octavia walks by the rows of partners, correcting pronunciation. She stops by Clarke, tapping her foot for a few seconds. "Clarke, 'you're an idiot' is ' _Ai hod yu in'_."

"I thought ' _Ai_ ' was 'I'?"

For a moment, Octavia's quiet, then: "It's an idiom." She keeps walking, a little smugly, leaving them to their practice.

"Try again." Clarke's hands push on her crossed legs. "You'll get it."

" _Ai laik_ Bellamy-"

"- _Belomi_."

He crosses his arms."I am not saying ' _Belomi_ '. It sounds like 'bologna'." She only stares at him, raising a brow. He sighs. " _Ai laik Belomi_ come Flew crow."

 _Shit_ , he did it again. He cringes.

" _Ai hod yu in,_ " Clarke laughs, tucking forward onto her knees. Bellamy thinks he leans in a bit too, unconsciously, but they rock back. Lincoln raises a brow as he walks by, but he doesn't say a word.

"... _Belomi kom Floukru,"_ she adds oh-so-helpfully.

"I got it, Princess."

..

She sits on her crane a lot.

Whenever she isn't needed, she's there. He never joins her, because she looks so at peace, watching the birds, and tracing the skyline. Clarke looks young, but so, so far from the princess he thought she was.

Bellamy doesn't want to break that.

So he just checks in with her every once in a while, just to make sure she hasn't fallen into the ocean and died. She always comes down on her own time—or when someone inevitably calls her name. He does his best to never be that person—but he can tell she loves it.

It's in her eyes, the freedom it grants her, (like the mercy she gave resonates in his).

..

One morning, at about three months, Octavia shows up at his tent, pushing her way inside. She asks if he wants to go fishing with her.

He does, of course. It's her.

They fish from the dock. The day is warm, but windy, glaring with the sun off the green water. He wears an old blue t-shirt, the one he snatched from Wells, and a pair of shorts a Lincoln gave him.

Octavia's in her usual orange robes, hair braiding down her back.

Bellamy tugs the old fishing net in with Octavia. This type of fishing isn't too efficient, they know, but they're here to have fun, not feed Floukru.

What he doesn't quite expect is, "I'm pregnant." He drops the net, plunking it into the water as fish shoot away and out.

 _What? What?_ "We meant to do this. We wanted to." Blood rushes from his head. "Clarke gave us herbs to help." _What._

"How long?"

"Five months." _Five months._ That's longer than they've been on the Rig.

That's like… as long as they've been on the ground. What the _fuck?_

She's moving on, moved on. Her life and his don't mix any more. They aren't corded together. This is the moment that fact finally settles in him.

She's _pregnant._

"I gotta- Clarke needs something. I-" He steps back, leaving an anchor, a net and a sister.

"Bellamy…"

This time, the ladder climb doesn't feel exhausting. This time, it doesn't feel like anything.

Bellamy doesn't know where he's going, but he walks and he walks. People keep talking to him, needing things, but he needs air, but needs space. He punches a studded, metal wall, because it will hurt and he knows it. He keeps walking, lapping in circles, and every time he passes Clarke's crane it challenges him.

The rusty, orange thing looks odd without her on it.

She always seems so peaceful up there. For a moment, he hesitates. Bellamy climbs it rung by rung, slowly. His knuckles ache and his eyes water. His thoughts are back to Octavia within seconds. Bellamy has nothing to distract him, nothing but stagnant, purple clouds.

Crawling over the bars to the end, he settles between two railings, dangling his feet over the edge. The water crashes beneath him, uncaring.

Bellamy takes a breath, and then another.

On the Ark, they used to say sunsets were calming. What a bunch of bullshit. He grits his teeth, looking to the moon and then the orange sun. Bellamy just wants to scream. Knuckles raw and numb, he smacks them in rhythm against the metal. _Ting._

He's not even mad at Octavia, just sad. _Ting_. It pangs and hurts. Perfect.

He feels a pulse, a vibrating hum. Bellamy traces his eyes to the base of the crane. There Clarke Griffin is. She clambers her way up and then crawls along the top to his side. Her boot nudges his side, and she squeezes in next him. He watches. She leans back on her palms on a bar, glowing pink and orange in the soft sun.

Clarke doesn't say a word, not right away, and for that, he is grateful.

Her hair is in a comfortable braid, flyaways curling around her blushing face. He honestly envies her controllable hair. Clarke has had to bring a hunting knife to his every couple of weeks.

Look at her, already distracting him.

"I knew I'd find you up here."

He looks at her. "How?" She shrugs.

"Because _Ai hod yu in._ " _You're an idiot._ He grimaces. She sighs, frowning. "It's where I go when I need to breathe." She leans forward on the bar, staring out into the endlessness. "You always checked in on me."

He doesn't answer. He didn't know she knew.

"I thought I'd check in on you this time."

"She's pregnant." Pretty skies can't neglect the fact.

"Yes."

"Wanna know what's weird?" Wind blows through. "This is everything I always wanted for her." He never thought she'd leave that dreaded floor, to be frank.

"But never thought she'd have," she murmurs, and he nods, "or never thought you'd have?"

He stares at her, startled. Her shoulders are forever peeling and glowing orange with the sky.

"Did you ever want a kid, Bellamy?"

"I didn't have a dad. I don't know how to be a dad." Bellamy doesn't think he'd be the best father. He's always so angry and violent. His knuckles are bleeding right now because he punched a metal wall, after all. "I don't know."

"You _were_ a dad, at six."

Clarke swivels her feet like a kid on a swing, saying those words like they're nothing. Vulnerable and breathtaking, whispered like a monotonous anthem that had desensitized the youth. He can see it, a pretty little girl who looks just like him (but blonder).

"I want a kid."

"You want a _daughter_." She pushes his shoulder teasingly. "You can have _friends_ , Bellamy." _Live for himself._ "A girlfriend even. You can stop turning Jenna down." Her name was Jenna? He's kind of a dick.

 _Live for himself._ Maybe, he should take it seriously. He feels like he doesn't deserve to, not after what he's done.

"She's _pregnant_ , Bellamy. You're gonna be an _uncle_." She sounds excited for him. An _uncle_. Some poor kid is going to have him as an uncle. Bellamy grins at her, because he's going to be an uncle. The wind brushes by their skin, cooling the everpresent stickiness of sweat. Clarke stretches out her arms, pushing his shoulder. She feigns an apology. His toes kick her bare ankle. She laughs.

He can have friends. He can live his life. He can be an uncle, and a brother. He can be Bellamy.

(He can learn who that is.)

..

He takes this 'friend' thing at his own pace. Bellamy gradually realizes people tire him out.

Even Clarke, but he shares a tent with her and she doesn't really count. She can tell when he needs space, hibernating herself away from him. His heart and all it's fears was revealed (given) to her a long time ago.

She can read him like a book, translating the pinch in his brow to exhaustion.

He does _like_ people, on a general note; they're just tiring. Miller, he realizes, is alarmingly snarky when you stop to listen, and rivals Bellamy in arrogance. He teaches Bellamy how to make a lift. Pickpocketing never seemed like a skill he'd need, but here he is, stealing little trinkets from Clarke, just to see if she'll notice.

Monty, oddly, is someone he gets on really well with. Bellamy helps him with his plants in the greenhouse. It's peaceful, plucking weeds from where they don't belong. A cleanse. Maybe if he pulls three-hundred-twenty, his problems will disappear.

Sure. His own pace is slow. He's never had friends before, okay?

They take a couple breaks, lounging on some old plastic chairs outside the greenhouse. 'Breaks': really, it's just Monty smoking a dart, and Bellamy fidgeting in paranoia about getting contact high. A couple 'breaks' go by, and Bellamy stops caring about the buzz he gets from breathing in Monty's vicinity.

"If anything's gonna survive the apocalypse, it's plastic," Monty chuckles, dragging his fingers along the dirty chairs.

Jasper shows up, offering Bellamy a blunt, (a nail to go in his coffin). He takes it, because 'whatever the hell we want' is a hard thing to turn down.

Whether he coughs on the smoke or not, only three people know. He threatens to burn them if they tell.

They have a grand time. This 'break' stretches into the evening, moving inside the greenhouse because there's work to be done, high as a kite or not.

A mild fog builds in the glass casing, cooking into smoke.

"So, you and Clarke share a tent," Monty informs uselessly. Bellamy takes a puff of what has to be his third dart, using a rusty pair of shears on dead branches.

"Yeah, what's that about?" Jasper asks, sprawled out on the dirt-layered floor.

Monty Green isn't the first one to mention it and won't be the last. "Two beds."

"Why?"

 _Why?_ Because they aren't like that. He doesn't see her that way— _sure_ —and she certainly doesn't see him that way. Two beds for a reason.

"We just aren't like that," Bellamy slurs.

Monty raises a brow, lolling his head. Bellamy drops the burnt up cig, crushing it with his toe. A black skid remains. Minutes pass and Jasper giggles more with each one.

Monty adds his last two-cents. "You're in love with Clarke."

The words sound weird, but they don't sound wrong. They scare him a bit; maybe it's the pot.

"Probably."

Jasper starts laughing, cackling with his arms on the floor like it's so _funny_. Bellamy grins, and Monty looks utterly confused.

What? It's _medicinal_.

..

Admittedly, Bellamy was not Lincoln's biggest fan. With the news, he's dropped from 'not a fan' to 'I'm your assassin'.

Lincoln isn't _that_ bad though. He's kind, and patient, and fatherly in ways Bellamy couldn't emulate if he tried.

(Clarke tells him otherwise, but he takes compliments from her about as well as he takes orders. "You're so patient, sickeningly so," she tells him. For a minute, he looks at her, before shrugging back his shoulders and nodding his head in bridle acceptance.)

Lincoln also participates in Octavia's schemes, but that takes more points away than it grants. Especially when Bellamy is the butt of the joke.

To summarize: his sister is a little bitch.

After three months— _three months_ —of Trig lessons, Lincoln told them what ' _Ai hod yu in'_ meant. Clarke spent the rest of the day blushing, and hiding away from him in medical. Bellamy, on the other hand, spent the rest of his day with a warmth in his chest.

He knew exactly what it was, too.

It was the same warmth that convinced him to run from a war. The same warmth he got when they shared a bed. (It's the same warmth that makes him want to say it back, but say it in English.)

Now, in the dead of night, he also knows what the _burn_ is too, the sting clenching his chest. It comes when she refuses to look him in the eye, crawling into a bed ten feet from his. Crawling, like she has something to be ashamed of, like telling Bellamy Blake, " _Ai hod yu in,"_ was such an embarrassing experience.

(It's the same burn that makes him scared to say anything near it back. Ever.)

..

He needs to talk to O. He knows he does.

She's hard to approach though, all happy and perfect, stomping her way through the markets of the Rig. Clarke pestered him for days about it. She even threatened to drag him to his sister by the ear.

"You're siblings," she spat at him, arms crossed, "you don't need excuses to _talk_ to each other."

So here he is, watching his sister across the market. Merchants call him. Clarke taps her foot at his feet, and he feels an unsettling pressure clench in his gut.

"Octavia!" Clarke yells, shooting panic through his heart.

O looks up at them, flickering her gaze as her grin falls off her face. Hesitantly, she takes steps toward them. He sees her breathing, stuttered and panicked. Bellamy did that. He made her feel like she couldn't trust him with this. Her _brother_. Some brother, controlling and whiny and selfish and-

"-Stop that," Clarke chastises, slapping the back of his head.

His sister settles in front of them. It's awkward for a beat. He starts, "how's the pregnancy going?" She squints her eyes at him. Clarke's hand pushes into his spine when he tenses. "I'm sorry."

She glows immediately and it startles him. "Oh, no worries…" and on and on. She tells him baby names and plans and, "you better be up for stories. No one tells them like you."

His cheeks warm under the sun, and he holds his head a little higher when Clarke, whose hand has been a lovely pressure on his arm, whispers, "she's right, you know."

His sister chats, laughing in the salty sea's wind. He can't believe he stressed her out with his stupid insecurities, made her think he was disappointed or hated her.

Her hands rubs constant little circles on her tummy, like she doesn't even think about it. Bellamy stares a little too harshly, and he gets caught. O laughs, and Clarke smiles. His sister takes his hands, pressing them onto her stomach. It's still flat, save for the mildest bump. His excitement bubbles up.

"Clarke says she's strong," Octavia says.

"She?"

"Technically, she said 'they'." He rubs the shirt softly.

He made her think he hated her, hated this… this _blessing_. God, he's a dick. (He feels Clarke's glare behind him, because somehow she knows.) He glances back at her, sheepishly smiling.

O coughs.

"There's something I thought I'd never see," Octavia teases quietly. He pretends he doesn't know what she's talking about.

 _"Ai hod_ you in, _"_ he says. Octavia startles, tightening her grip on his hands. "Lincoln told me what it means." Octavia giggles.

"How'd that go?" His sister teases.

Again, Bellamy looks over his shoulder at the pinking girl with sun beams for hair. She looks proud of him. So proud.

"You're a bitch." Her laughter is light, like classical music.

She looks over at Clarke, gaze softening as it flits between him and her. With a smile glistening in her eyes, his little, baby, grown-up sister says in blissful English, "I love you too, Big Brother." His eyes fall back to her stomach where a nephew grows.

Yes, it's a nephew. Uncle's intuition.

..

Months go by, and nothing really changes.

He hangs out with Monty, and Miller, and even Lincoln. He spends his nights practising Trig with Clarke on his bed. Monty's stoned words mock him every time he looks at her.

Bellamy looks at Clarke a lot, he realizes.

They spend some days in the canteen together, listening to an elderly violin. This is one of those days, sun beating down. They wear reds and yellows and browns. They fit in with the natives. It's a boiling day, soaking their hair in sweat.

Desmond, the man with the hands of strings and cracked chalk, plays a beautiful hum. It's an old-earth classical piece.

With a laugh, Clarke throws her hair up in the most destructive bun he's ever seen. She snatches his wrist.

Just this once, somehow, she gets Bellamy to dance with her. Of course, they're the first ones dancing, because Clarke's always the first one. Desmond sees them and so plays faster, twisting his elbows and carving an old smile into his rotting teeth.

Desmond just loves Clarke, in that kind, elderly way.

(He told Bellamy so over tea, one cool evening. "It's her _keryon_ ," he said. "Death and kindness shouldn't mix like that." He poured sugar into Bellamy's tea. Bellamy didn't have the heart to let Desmond know he liked it black.

Desmond cackled, because he knew and did it anyway.)

Bellamy and Clarke miss the first few beats horrendously, but then they fall right in with the crescendo. Sounds like them.

"Sorry," Clarke laughs, stepping onto his toes. Bellamy rubs his bare leg against hers in mockery. He grins, looking over her peeling shoulder to Lincoln, who dances with Octavia. His sister glows with her pregnancy, plump and perfect, beautiful. She waddles into a spin, and Lincoln laughs like a man in love.

It's still a little hard to watch sometimes. It's everything he ever wanted for her, (everything he thought he was never going to have).

Clarke spins in his arms, again and again. Their skin touches, sparking, and fuck, did he miss touching her. Even this, where she steps on his toes, and laughs into his neck. Especially this. She steps on his foot again, and doesn't even apologize. Her eyes look up at him, blown navy and her lips quirk in their rhythm.

Maybe… she missed it too.

He considers living for himself right in that moment, if only he'd lean down to kiss her. She spins, and every particle of air she touches crackles. She smells like sweat. He smells like sweat. It's tangy, like old lemons. Sticky air blows through as they dance.

She snorts. He loves her happiness. It's months overdue. She spins again on a high-note that rapidly shimmers down to a low.

Clarke's eyes catch his for a startled moment.

Her steps falter and he forgets to breathe. A drop of sweat rolls down her brow. He watches it carve around her nose and down to the corner of her lips, dipping in.

_Live for himself._

Falling down those countless, inconsequential inches, Bellamy captures Clarke's lips in an unyielding hold, a desperate one. His hands clutch her forearms. She squeaks in surprise and for a moment, or a decade, she doesn't respond. Bellamy feels the rumble of feet hitting the metal beneath his soles. They vibrate from his toes and tingle to his lips. There's a push back, a light one. She rises to her tippy-toes and releases his neck from its hunch. Teeth bite his lower lip mischievously.

Music picks up, he's sure.

At least, the thudding does. Bellamy can't hear a thing. Her forearms slide from his grasp to lock her elbows on his shoulders. He barely notices.

She falls to her heels, crooking her forehead to his lips.

"So we're not just friends," Clarke whispers, pressing her forehead to his lips. It's a question in words, but it's a fact all the same.

"What gave it away?"

She quirks a brow, arms slipping so her hands rest on his shoulders. Heat builds under his collar and suddenly he feels claustrophobic on an open platform in the middle of the ocean. She presses a peck to his chin, right where it dips, cupping his jaw in her palm. "You wanna get outta here?" His choke is nowhere near dignified.

Did Clarke Griffin just _proposition_ him?

Her finger tips dance down his arms, grasping his fingers in hers. It's a light grip, one asking for permission. He nods at her, dumbfounded.

Her grin lights up his world.

She tugs him after her, through the crowd. They nearly bump into a couple, and then children. Her fingers tangle and squeeze his. In the back of his head, Bellamy's sure he can hear Desmond cackling.

Clarke doesn't take them far. In fact, they're startlingly close to the party. She pulls him across the canteen, and around a two corners. A set of steel steps attached to the wall greets them, hollow and barely shaded from the sun.

She drags him underneath the deck. Crates stack up on one side, but the stairs barely give them cover, like open blinds on a window.

They just have to hope no one looks too closely.

His back hits the wall and Clarke's lips are quick to meet his. Their breathing melts together. The metal against his shoulder blades vibrates with the thuds of the dancers. Bellamy can hear them laughing, and he can hear Desmond's violin. Clarke groans softly. She tastes like fish, to be honest, but so does he. His fingers trace over her bare arms.

Her skin is warm, blushing on the shoulders and elbows. Cheeks flared, Clarke pulls back to breathe for only a moment.

He flips them.

Her back hits a crate, and Bellamy cages her in, hand pressing into the wall on his left. It burns on the gleaming metal. Laughter flows through the stairs behind him.

His lips don't care. He kisses Clarke, grinding her. Her fingers dig into his hips.

"Catch me," she whispers.

Then, she jumps up to him and he scrambles to grab her thighs. Her lips suck on his, mewling as he pushes her into stacked crates. The one on top shifts back a bit, leaving a perch for him to set her on.

His fingers rise to thread into her hair, tugging strands from her bun. She bites his lip. For a moment he pulls back. The sun glints off her eyes in strips of light. Bars of shade from the steps warm them. He kisses her again, and then one more time. It's so soft, it feels like an extension of the small caresses from months back.

He's never kissed like this before. There have been stolen kisses here or there. On the Ark, it's all he had time for. After he lost O, he wasn't interested in any girl passed a fuck or two.

Bellamy wasn't really interested in living.

He hikes Clarke up. It's so hot out, even in the shade, sweltering in the beads of sweat curling over their features. The sun disappears behind a cloud. She nips his tongue, and he gnaws hers back, groaning as he rocks against her. It's a raw kiss, lust filled and ready for fucking.

But they aren't rushing it.

Even before he lost Octavia, he couldn't trust anyone. There was never a _someone_ , something with emotion behind it.

There was a fuck here, some stress relief there.

He lost his virginity when he was seventeen to a girl named Lilly Marsh he knew for a week. There was a surprise inspection; heart still spasming, he kissed her. Even then, it was for the sweet release of _gone_.

Stress relief on the Ark, guilt relief on the ground.

There is no panic here, and he wants to beam with every touch of lip. They're taking their time, making out like kids under the bleachers in those old high schools he used to hear about. They kiss, and kiss. Because they can, because it's fun.

Sun peaks through the steps, making his closed eyes glow red and burning his already rose tinged body.

Maybe they are those kids. He wishes they could be those kids.

She locks her ankles behind his back, groaning out something that sounds like a butchered moan of his name. He's hard, and he can feel his strain, but he likes kissing her. Kissing her is fun. She's cheeky in the way she bites his lip.

He really won't push it, kissing her as long as she'll let him.

It seems Clarke's patience is thin though. Her hands drop from his sweat damped hair, to his tan shorts. The button pops and she pushes her hands inside his boxers.

"Clarke," he chokes, pressing his hips into her hand.

She grabs his waistband and shoves them down to rest them just under his ass. Clarke drops to her feet, pivoting him into the burning wall. His head nearly knocks into the stairs.

The thudding rhythm of feet pulses on his shoulders with the burn. He keeps drowning both out.

She falls to her knees. He gulps.

Excitement course through him as she nimbly clutches the head of his cock. He sags against the wall, staring down at her, hazy and blushing. Her hair falls from her bun and curls with sweat and salt. He threads his left hand through. The beautiful, stubborn, pinking girl below him drags her tongue down a pulsing vein on the side of his dick. Throbbing pulls at his stomach.

She's nimble for a moment, curious, and he wonders if she's done this before.

Then, Clarke takes him in her tiny mouth, not struggling around his thickness but definitely putting some effort in. He's left reeling as he throws his head back against the wall.

_Shit._

He had his first blowjob back at the dropship. It was back when he was worshipped. Bellamy took advantage of that worship. He thinks it was Roma or Bree. Roma or Bree were probably better at it, objectively.

Subjectively, he's ready to give the world to Clarke Griffin. She worships him in a different way. Her mouth sucks him a little shallower than they did, a little harsher. Why is he _comparing?_ He groans.

She is his equal. She isn't using him for power, or his body.

Maybe, they are just having fun, and she'll wake up tomorrow and decide this isn't for them—but she won't feel shame, or regret it. He'll see to it—they're in this together.

His hips want to thrust, lose control and abuse the cavity she's granted him until she's choking.

He holds back like he's never tried to.

She hums, and he feels the back of her throat on the ridges of his dick. Her cheeks hollow against his dark skin. The tips of her fingers trek over his abs and down to his balls. So good. His left hand grabs her hair while the other desperately clutches the grate of the stair by his head. He curls his fingers into the metal. It burns his palm a bit.

 _Clarke. Clarke. Princess._ It's all he can think.

He thrusts, hard, and her eyes widen and immediately she pulls her mouth off him, choking into the dip in his hip.

 _Shit._ "Clarke," he rags, trying to breathe. Yeah, she's trying to breath too, asshole. "I'm sorry, I-"

Then, her mouth is back on him, pushing deeper, over and over. She chokes, and gasps, and he bucks again. He's trying not to, really, but _fuck_. There's a thump around the curve of the walls, and they freeze. Someone's coming.

It's Monty and Jasper, laughing their asses off. Of course it is.

Bellamy smells the familiar tangy burn of skunk and pepper, rolled into darts. They round the corner. If the boys were anywhere near lucid, they'd make direct eye contact with Bellamy through the stairs, Clarke's lips still on his dick.

Monty takes a hit. Jasper chuckles.

They take the first stair, then the next. _Clang, clang_ , the steps shake. His eyes follow them. They nearly step on his fingers. Bellamy drops them quick, nearly sighing in relief.

Then pleasure shoots him in the foot.

Bellamy bites his tongue to stop the yelp, _clang, clang._ The last two steps echo a little more than those before.

His eyes glare down at her. He grabs her bun, her cheek, pulling out of her mouth to the tip. Clarke blinks up innocently, hollowing her cheeks and pressing her tongue along his slit. The jolt happens again. He stifles the moan as she sucks him in. Clanking rumbles down from above them.

"Are you _crazy?"_ His tone is a desperate wisp and she hums 'mmhmm' onto his dick. His eyes nearly roll back.

Thudding comes from above as Jasper and Monty do whatever the fuck those potheads do. Bellamy can see their shadows through the grate. Some ash trickles down.

A haze that could be Clarke's euphoric skill, or a cloud of smoke settles over them. She nearly takes him to the base.

"Ng…" he groans, biting his lips as her teeth nick that vein. " _Fuck_ …"

He can't. He can't. Bellamy's arm comes to his mouth and he clamps onto his forearm, hickeying himself. Clarke hums. He's done with this torture. Bellamy drags her up, latching his mouth onto hers. Her shorts tug down easily, crumpling just beneath her knees. Bellamy pivots and forces her on the perch with a tiny hop, pushing his fingers and tongue inside her with ease. She gasps, a little loudly. For a second, it all freezes.

Then, Jasper cackles at something and the thudding continues. Bellamy thrusts again, pulling his lips away, but adding a third finger.

"Stay quiet for me, Princess," he growls in her ear. Clarke pants and whines into his curls. He tugs her shorts off the rest of the way with one hand, curling his fingers into a spot that makes her breath hitch. "Such a pretty little girl." 

The garment pillows on the floor and she opens her legs like a once locked gate where her shorts were the padlock. He wants to try four, so he takes it slow. His fingers form a square at the tips. She tenses, and he kisses her. "This okay?" Clarke sobs and nods all at once.

He pushes them in, slowly, kissing her between the brows. His thumb massages her clit, and then she clenches around him, so tight, he can't remove his fingers.

"Bell— _Bellamy_ …" she whispers, shaking. His fingers slurp when he removes them.

She snatches his wrist to her chest, pulling him toward her. His hips flush to hers, dark cock sliding up against her throbbing clit and milky stomach.

He kisses her sunburnt shoulders softly, rocking back and forth against her but not entering. Sweat drips down her body.

She clenches her thighs, lips wrapping around his fingers. Ash falls down on his arm. _Ow ow ow_. It burns quickly and Clarke swipes his arm to get it away. Grateful, he grins. She rolls her eyes, biting his finger and bringing her other hand down to his cock.

She lines them up, but leaves the thrust to him.

"This is happening?" he asks, voice hushed. There is no tease, only desperation. It's not even like he's asking consent. It's just disbelief, in what he's feeling, what she's giving.

"Yes."

He doesn't take it slow, or fast. It's somewhere in between, but he makes it _good_. This is Clarke, after all, gnawing his fingers with glazed over eyes. It's Clarke he's sliding into, roughly and sweetly. It's Clarke's skin sticking to his.

It's Clarke.

The girl he's (probably) in love with. The girl who is so different from the others. She really isn't, honestly. She's like many other girls, much like he isn't the only selfish dick the world has ever graced: read the first paragraph of any history book. She's a girl, a human who mixes death and kindness, who blends poignance and monotony. She's just a girl, who sucks at staying quiet, panting into his neck.

Just a silly girl, with too much on her plate.

Objectively, this is basic sex, under some stairs. Their friends are laughing their asses off on a high above them. Objectively, it's a little uncomfortable. It's so hot, sweltering, and he has ash in his hair. Objectively, _she's just a girl,_ a brave one, and objectively, he's made some horrible decisions.

Subjectively, he does not care.

Subjectively, she's fucking beautiful and being inside her is like nothing he's ever felt. It's like coming home. It's like someone you love being proud of you. It's a fire given to someone dying of hypothermia.

It's like he loves her. Is that an objective thing? Bellamy Blake in love with Clarke Griffin. It sounds objective, but that's his opinion.

She starts clenching around him, biting into his neck. She shakes and shakes, falling apart in his arms. " _Al_...most." She twitches her hand between her legs. She's just a girl, Bellamy, not the world, not a princess or a queen. Just a girl. He tells himself this with each hard thrust.

It's not working.

Miller whips around the corner. Bellamy freezes, and Clarke comes on the spot, quivering around him. Her teeth nearly break the skin on his fingers to suppress whatever sound was coming. She flushes, embarrassed, into his shoulder as he wraps his arms around her.

"He doesn't see us," he whispers, "calm _down_." He slides his finger from her mouth.

The panic in her eyes would make him laugh.

"You guys seen, Clarke?" Miller asks, staring up at Monty and Jasper. She seizes with him inside her. It burns him because he's still hard, still holding in the orgasm she's been teasing probably close to an hour now. She clenches again, on _purpose_. She is crazy. Risky. He breathes heavily, quietly.

"No, why?" Jasper responds.

"She's needed in medical. You see her, send her there." He runs right passed them.

A pregnant moment passes, before Monty calls, "hey, Bellamy, get your dick outta Clarke and send her to medical!"

"Oh my God," Clarke laughs, pushing Bellamy off her.

He slips out of her, face burning in utter shame. Everyone laughs but him. He hastily pulls up his pants and Clarke does the same. He didn't even _come_. Not her fault, but he's antsy.

She gives him guilty eyes, tying the string on her shorts. "It's fine. Go." Her smile makes the strain in his pants a little better.

Especially when she kisses his cheek. "I'll make it up to you." Either, his blood vessels pop or fireworks burst in his stomach. He can't pick.

She saunters by him, then the stairs. "Clarke! What a coincidence! They need you in medical!" Jasper cackles. Bellamy cringes.

She waves them off, speed-walking around the corner so fast she could win a sprint.

 _Fuck_. Now, he's left with Monty and Jasper. He could just follow Miller, stalk away like it never happened. His hands would slide into his pockets with ease. He could. Instead—after waiting a minute for his dick to calm down—he climbs the steps. Bellamy takes the hit Monty offers, because whatever, who cares.

"How long?"

"Saw your fingers, dumbass," Monty chirps. Bellamy flushes.

"Clarke ain't quiet either. That's when we figured out it was _you two,"_ Jasper adds.

"Before we thought it was randos."

"And you stayed?" Bellamy asks, raising his brows incredulously.

Jasper shrugs. "I wanted a hit. I don't care."

It goes comfortably quiet for a minute.

"How'd you know it was me with her?" It's an incredibly dumb question, the kind someone asks when they so clearly want to be validated.

"Who else would she be fucking?" Jasper sits on the steps, cracking his neck.

The question hits him a little hard and he actually doesn't know what to say.

"Finn."

They start laughing, slapping their hands on their thighs. Bellamy scowls, crossing his arms. Some friends he has.

"What the fuck is on your arm, Blake?" Jasper goads. Thankfully, Bellamy doesn't have to answer the question.

Miller whips out from under the stairs again, looking frantic and panting. "Clarke's gone to medical, Nate. You're good," Monty calls down to him.

Miller relaxes immediately, but then his eyes meet Bellamy's. His face pales and Bellamy feels his heart stutter.

"It's Octavia."

..

He's only felt such _terror_ once, bone-chilling and broken, when he watched uselessly as his mother birthed O.

It's worse now. He is not allowed in the room for hours. Hours so long, the midday has maybe four fingers between it and the horizon. He paces, and paces, gnawing his nails to that horrifyingly hollow _thud, thud, thud_ of steps he's grown so used to. Bellamy wants to eradicate it like the black plague on Europe.

Octavia screams and cries, and he has to sit outside the tent and listen.

Clarke isn't even here to keep him sane. She's with Octavia, who's screaming, and giving birth. He needs control, latching onto Clarke's voice as she calmly tells Octavia to _push_. Again. Again. Nothing could be worse than the screaming of his sister, nothing.

He is oh-so-very _wrong_.

Silence is all that comes after the screaming, and it is more deafening than any motor on any boat, or any scream from any sister in labour.

The Rig stops breathing for those moments of nothing.

It drags, and drags, and he wants to run in that tent and cause another nuclear meltdown. A gurgling crawls into his throat and he might just choke. He knew this damned air of oil was going to kill him. Hundreds of eyes stare at the tent, but he can't look as he hears Clarke's voice rise that infinitesimal amount. "Come on, little one… _breathe_." She's panicking, and so he's panicking.

A piercing cry cuts the air, along with a sigh filled so much relief it could fill a balloon.

It could fill his lungs, but it doesn't.

Minutes later, Clarke emerges from the wasteland, drenched in sweat and stained hands. He really doesn't care. She falls into his arms. Instantly, just holding her, he feels his muscles soften.

"You okay?"

"Fine," she whispers, and he knows that she is lying. "Everyone's okay. I should be fine." He rubs circles into her back. "He wasn't _breathing_."

Neither was Bellamy. The moment his arms surrounded her, he gasped in his first breath in a century.

..

Clarke has to go back to Octavia, at Lincoln's call, but he doesn't mind.

Hours pass and night settles over the Rig. A lantern flickers above on Bellamy's crate, burning kerosene uselessly but he's tired and it's a comfort. He sits back against the wooden box, sighing in utter relief.

Bellamy refuses to leave his vigil, clothes soaked through in sweat.

The first child of the sky people born on Earth is _his_ nephew. Pride wells in Bellamy as he knocks his head back against the wood.

His eyes jolt open when he feels her steps, that stupid _thud_ from inside the tent. "Ready to meet your uncle?" Bellamy never thought he'd hear a baby voice from Clarke, and it really isn't one.

It's just a softer, kinder tone.

Bellamy scrambles to his feet as she emerges. In her arms, a baby bundled in brown sways with the bounce of her arms. Clarke Griffin holding an infant does dangerous things to his heart. It thunders and pulses.

She's so perfect in the most broken ways, just a girl doing what she has to. Her brow creases, hair destroyed from dancing and fucking. It's been a long night.

His hands itch for the baby. It coos and whines and he wants it.

Clarke's tired eyes smile at him; her mouth just can't. She rocks softly in the whispering dark, unwilling to shatter the unspokeness of _your sister could've died._ "Lincoln wanted you to meet him," she whispers, gathering the child into his bundle. Bellamy's hands hold ready, glinting in the lantern and scarred.

"How's it feel being the first uncle in a hundred years?"

The flaws in her statement are glaring, but the sentiment makes his heart play hopscotch. The moment his fingers touch the infant, Bellamy's every vessel wants to pour over.

"His name is August," she says.

Somewhere along the line, Clarke stepped into his space. Their toes nearly kiss as they look down at August and his squishy cheeks. "I suggested December as a joke and Octavia looked at me like I was stupid," she adds.

Sighing in what sounds like defeat, she undoes her ruined bun completely. Her hair tumbles down and he loses his breath.

His finger settles over August's tiny mouth, falling into it, just like O. It's a little different this time though.

The walls don't feel like they're caving in on him with broken laws. There is no mother, forcing a baby girl, (a burden of the best kind) into a tiny boy's arms. _Your responsibility, your responsibility._ This is different.

This is Clarke Griffin, holding a choice.

"My responsibility," he chooses. Bellamy crooks the child into his elbow, grinning softly. "My little emperor…" August giggles.

"And I thought Princess was bad." August's pudgy hand grabs Clarke's pinky, and Bellamy feels an unquenchable tug in his abdomen. A want like he's never had, nowhere near sexual and so far from brotherly.

"Nothing's as bad as Princess, Princess."

Only a Bellamy high on marijuana can place this. A lucid one isn't all that far off. With a baby gurgling in his arms, he leans forward, pressing his cracked lips to her brow. It's some form of promise.

He wants this.

This girl, this nephew, this home on the sea. He wants it all, and maybe he doesn't deserve it. What people deserve is completely subjective anyway. It's a choice he's making for him. He wants to live.

..

Judging by the way Clarke kisses him the next night, on _their_ bed, just the one, he'd say she likes his choice.

It's fast, and he comes hard. He tastes her on his lips to make up for his prematurity. After she comes, Clarke pulls his lips up to hers and he feels the lightest of laughs on their tongues.

"Make love, not war," she quotes beneath him, laughing into his mouth. He grins. She holds him in her arms. They resonate together. For a second he closes his eyes.

Then, she smiles, and maybe it's still a little sad. That's okay.

..

Three weeks later, his sister catches them in a similar position, interrupting at the worst possible time.

No, not during the sex. After that.

" _Ai hod_ you on," he whispers to her in the aftermath, once. Sure, he fucks it up, but he means it.

"Bellamy…" she stares down at him, eyes a little glassy. Her voice is nervous.

"I know what it means," he snaps defensively, pushing into the curl of her palm on his chin. Almost to hide.

Her eyes twinkle and her lips quirk.

"Hey, Bellamy…" the tent flap flies open, "oh _shit_."

With startling efficiency, he sits up, pulling the orange thermal blanket to cover at least the small of her back and down. He presses his chest to Clarke's, hugging her to him.

"Fucking finally."

The baby in her arms gurgles, and Lincoln follows in behind Octavia, chastising her sweetly. "Try not to swear…" his eyes catch Bellamy wrapping his arms protectively around Clarke, "damn."

"I know," Octavia giggles. "It's so exciting!"

"Now I know how Bree felt," Clarke whispers into his ear.

He bites back the grin, glaring at O. "Did ya need something? Kinda busy."

"You were supposed to watch Auggie."

Clarke starts laughing, shaking in his arms. "That was _tomorrow_ ," she says, turning her head to look at them.

"I know, but today too," She brushes her fingers over her baby, " _please_."

"Could you give us a minute?" Bellamy growls, quickly becoming fed up.

The little family runs from the tent. Clarke rises off of him, laughing down at his annoyance. She holds out a hand. "Ready to be the kind of uncle that ruins the mom's day?"

"You know me so well," he teases, pulling up his pants.

Clarke slips her shirt on. "It's why I love you, after all." She buttons her shorts, walking out the tent. She says like it's nothing.

He pulls his shirt over his head, nodding to no one like an awkward little duck.

. .

.

.

" _Who is Clarke Griffin?"_

_"No one."_

_"Mr. Blake,"_ the man says, _"evidence says otherwise. These will only get worse."_

He grits his teeth. Fine, then. They'll get nothing from him.

. .

.

.

.

**BEFORE**

Bellamy always thought he'd kiss her when the world finally settled down.

When the weight of a skyscraper wasn't grinding their spines. When they had time to learn and love every new detail. He wants to know her middle name, her birthday, her favourite memory—so he waited.

He already knew he loved her, of course.

Bellamy fell in love with her through every shitty choice they ever made together, every lever they had to pull. Clarke closed the door on him. Mount Weather crushed them both.

(He hates levers.)

Bellamy fell a little more in love with Clarke every time she forgave him for unforgivable things, but he didn't _know_ her, the inconsequential things about her, anyway.

The things that didn't matter.

He thought he'd finally kiss her once he had the chance to know her, but then she died in Praimfaya. He is left staring out the window. Staring. Staring. It's all he fucking does.

He is left alone, because she left, because she fucking died for them.

..

Then, she didn't die in Praimfaya, and he waited far too long.

It's been six years and she's truly a sight for only the strongest souls. His heart flutters at her name when it slips passed a child's lips.

It's ridiculous, really.

When he finds, saves and finally hugs Clarke (who was dead, who he killed), everything rushes through him and his heart spikes. He knew her for what? Seven months? Three of which she spent on her own after Mount Weather. It's been _six years._ It's wrong for him to latch onto a girl he doesn't know. It's not right for him to be so irrevocably devoted to her, not at all.

He revokes it, regardless of what his heart wants.

His head knows: stay away from Clarke Griffin. (What if she dies again—leaves him behind— _again_? He doesn't need her, not anymore.)

He spent six years in space with Echo, Emori, Monty, Harper, Raven and Murphy. They're his family now.

(She was supposed to be there too.)

..

Yeah, sure they're his family, but when Octavia arrests Clarke, he flips a switch. He poisons her. He doesn't need her. He really doesn't; he's just stopping O from crossing a line she can't uncross.

("Pleading for the life of a traitor, _who you love._ " Bellamy doesn't deny anything, but he should, really should.)

..

He says the words he's been trying to convince himself of under the eclipse's control.

"I don't know if you've noticed, _Clarke_ , but I don't need you anymore."

It's such a lie. (He can't _need_ her; he knew her for seven months.) Her eyes flash with hurt. He nearly chokes her to death, and in the aftermath, they lay together, legs intertwined.

(His head says: "stay away from Clarke Griffin." His heart say: "fuck that.")

..

He'll never kiss her now, and that's fine; he can still learn her favourite things. They're _friends_ , so he stops calling her princess, forcing the Clarke and tries his best effort at keeping his eyes off her.

He fails.

Bellamy hates himself for it, but he stares at Clarke across the room. She's focusing intently on her paper, bent over and biting her tongue. Clarke's short hair falls over her bare shoulders.

She looks at him. He looks away, and so goes the cycle.

Bellamy leans on the table, sighing. If only his heart and his head could just _agree_. He nearly laughs at the allusion—no.

She walks toward him feigning confidence, and Bellamy does his best to keep his eyes trained forward.

The lanterns make your sins float, disappear, as Clarke tells him. Sounds like bullshit to Bellamy, but her eyes light up as she bounces back and forth on her feet, entranced by the idea.

"I wrote down leaving you in Polis."

"Clarke, stop." He needs to shut her down; they talked about the radio calls already. Kind of. He forgave her for leaving him. He owes her no more, (but he wants to give her more, wants to ask what she said in those calls). "Let's not do this."

She talks and rambles, her eyes watering.

She's so open with him, like they have been since she gave him forgiveness. He can feel himself breaking. Bellamy sighs, conceding. Friends can comfort each other, so he looks for the most neutral words.

"I know what it's like to risk everything for one person." _Think of Octavia. Think of Octavia._ He thinks of Clarke. "And I know Madi's your family."

She leans forward, and he leans back and his heart breaks when her eyes flicker in recognition. He _can't_. If they're really going to be friends, they have to stop whatever the hell it is they do.

This isn't friendly.

"You're my family too, and I lost sight of that," she pushes, and his heart sputters out. No, not okay. He pulls away, flitting his gaze everywhere and nowhere.

Just not her (but she's all he ever sees).

"You're too important to me," she says, and he nearly crumples under the weight of her honesty. Her voice is fragile, as strong as glass. She's so prepared for him to shut her down, crack her in half.

That's good, because that is exactly what he's going to do.

" _Clarke_." It comes out so much softer than he wants it to. Bellamy stares at her and when she looks back, his gaze holds. He hugs her, which is so opposite of his plans. By technicality, he's known her 132 years. In their reality, it's been eight months. Still, Bellamy could spend the rest of his life here, wrapped in her arms, and it's wrong.

Hugging Clarke Griffin has always been a desperate, in between kind of thing. It's a reunion or they're crying. This is pure _hugging_ just to hug.

It's a friend hug.

(This 'friend hug' is the only hug he's ever had with her that's felt forced.)

..

Bellamy never thought he'd finally kiss her because she wasn't _breathing_.

"Bell…" Octavia whispers. She sounds soft, and so unlike the girl he remembers before she came barrelling out of the Anomaly. He gives his life to Clarke (he did that years ago), forcing the oxygen into her lungs. In desperation, he slams his hands into her chest, pleading with any god that exists.

"She's gone." Octavia rests her fingers on his arm.

"No, she's not!" Rhythmically, he pulses his hands onto her chest but her face keeps growing paler. _Clarke, please._

" _I need you,_ " he sobs, breaking his voice and his previous claims.

It hurts just as much as last time he lost her, just as deep. He's pushing, and pulsing. His lips meet hers and his mind can't even compute that he's kissed her.

_Come on, Princess._

He exhales, releasing a piece of his soul because he's about to give up. It's over. Once again, Bellamy failed Clarke and the flatline echoes in his ears. He's lost her, and his heart sinks farther than ever before. All he can thinks of is how much time he _wasted_ in his determination to never feel _this_ again.

God, it's like his soul is being ripped from his body.

No. She can't be gone. His lips push on hers, forcing more air than he has and maybe a sob. Damnit, fuck it all to hell.

This world can _burn_.

She gasps to life. His hands clutch onto her. Clarke's sweaty face is tired, suffocating. How could he let this happen to her in his stupid vendetta? He should've protected her. Bellamy cares about her, loves her and clearly, forcing himself not to doesn't work. For a moment, she stares at him, swaying. Clarke lunges forward, and he swears she was going to kiss him. He would've kissed her back (like a cheater). Her arms wrap around his neck, trembling.

He's already forgiven by her as they rock back and forth.

Again. He's forgiven. And like every other undeserved forgiveness, it pulls him into her eyes, hanging off the cliff of his heart. He's standing on that tightrope he and Clarke have walked on for eons it seems.

"The head and the heart," she murmurs into his cold, cold shoulder, curling her face towards his heart.

(He wonders—if he jumped off that cliff, or even fell from the tightrope—he wonders, so thoroughly, if she'd catch him.)

..

Gabriel's tent reminds him of simpler times.

They'd argue in his tent, or in the forest, or in the dropship; they argued a lot, he realizes. His tent brings back those heavier conversations and those in-between kind of laughs, because they never just _laughed_.

They snickered in the face of death, and death spit back.

His gaze shifts over scattered desks with cluttered tops. Ultimately, his eyes lead him back to her. It's after the fact—when she's sleeping, finally resting like she deserves—does he think about what happened.

He saved her life, that's it.

Bellamy feels like he needs to tell Echo, but that's _ridiculous_ : it was CPR to save her _life_. It wasn't a kiss, but his lips tingle and he has an urge to do it again. He sits there, watching her breathe, and something has changed. He spent _six years_ trying to use his head, wasting his time, because the moment he saw her again his heart began to beat.

He looks at Clarke, who's sleeping peacefully.

He hates this tent. It makes him think of the 'what if's and 'what could have been's.

. .

.

.

.


	5. may we meet again

_**EXPERIMENTATION BEGINS** _

_**time of capture:** _

_**19:21:45** _

_**May 6, 2281** _

_**subject name:** _

_**bellamy blake** _

_**objective:** _

_**-determine desire/fear** _

_**-bait clarke griffin: key**_

.

. .

**NOW**

..

_"Who is Clarke Griffin?"_

..

His back aches, scarred and ripped, but she traces the outlines of his sins with the tips of her fingers. Then, she kisses them.There's a watch and switchblade on their countertop.

( _Click_.

"Stop fidgeting," she chastises, slicing through the strands. Tufts of his curly hair fall in front of his eyes. It gathers around their feet. He crosses his arms, trying his hardest to resist the urge to shake his head like a puppy.

"You're not the boss of me."

"Keep telling yourself that, Hotshot.")

..

" _Where is Clarke Griffin?"_

..

"The people I love don't make it," she says into his shoulders.

They sit above her mother's grave, and he wishes he could dispute her. The evidence can't back him up. He could try saying it wasn't her fault, but it's _Clarke_. She thinks everything is her fault.

He thinks he finally gets it.

..

" _I don't know who you're talking about,"_ Bellamy grits out, looking at the screen of dreams they play before him. Where'd they get that footage?

" _I think you do,"_ the man says. _"Do you like it?"_ His arm mockingly references the many screens. A switchblade. Chess with Clarke. Five graves in a storm. A nephew. " _We call it the Sanctuary."_

..

Three buttons.

Every time he sees her in that checkered, red and black shirt, all he can think about is those three buttons and how they clattered on the floor. How she hurt him, sentencing Octavia to be a glorified gladiator.

Every time he sees her, all he can think of is those five useless deaths.

And when she inevitably stops waiting for him, he watches as Lexa kisses her in the mornings. A feeling he doesn't want tightens his throat. He watches this for years: _years_. He sits in council meetings, goes to parties. And when he's forced to engage with either, well: Clarke smiles at every word he offers and Lexa holds a permanent frown. He goes five years, rarely granting her a minute if his time.

But, after their five years is up, they emerge from the bunker. He has no excuse to see her, he knows. There was a comfort in knowing she was _there_. He has no excuse.

None at all.

But he does anyway. He talks to her more within their first month topside than the sixty months beneath. When Clarke confronts him about it, he considers kissing her and kicking her, all in one thought.

She tells him, "all of you, or none of you. I can't do _this_ -"

It's when he finds out Lexa ended it. Because apparently, the ultimatum was given to Clarke before she gave it to him.

Though, they both know she's lying. Clarke and Bellamy will be in this circle for the rest of his miserable days. He's tired of being miserable.

He takes the ultimatum, anyway, regardless of its insignificance.

"All of me."

..

" _They're real."_ The man's covered face seizes Bellamy's insides. " _Maybe if you didn't mess everything up, your sister wouldn't hate you_." He holds up a needle, flicking the top. " _Wanheda would love you."_

Bellamy feels a sharp pain in his arm. " _Who?_ "

..

Through his time on the Rig, Bellamy has learned to love how the sun boils the metal, cooking his feet to the floor. August sits atop his shoulders, whining about how his feet hurt, and admittedly, Bellamy sees little blisters forming.

Not that Uncle Bellamy needs an excuse to piggyback his nephew. The boy giggles, and tugs his hair. Clarke stares at them fondly.

Though, he nearly drops the poor kid on his head when Clarke says, "I'm pregnant."

. .

.

**AFTER**

"Come on," she says. Her hands rip the latches off his wrists.

Her heart pounds, thumping like a drum. When he opens his eyes they burn with the sheer agony. Utter confusion. He stares at her with a look of recognition and loss.

What did they do to him?

"Clar…" he breathes, stumbling through the word.

"Hey, Bellamy," she says softly, moving the hair from his forehead. "We gotta move."

His head feels warm against her palm. _Throbbing._

"I- don't… understand," he says, lifting his fingers. "Happened to your hair?"

"Excuse me?" She grins. Her hair's been the same since they came down.

Bellamy stares at her and the look on his face makes her skin tinge and her smile fall from her lips. It's hurt, anger, relief, and happiness, and so, so much confusion. She pulls him to his feet. Clarke tried giving him the smallest of smiles. It's strained at best.

Oh, what did they do?

..

"Could you stop getting kidnapped?"

They stumble out of the room, into a bleached hallway. It burns his eyes. Miller and Niylah stand guard, pointing a gun down each hall. Gabriel is standing next to a blonde Bellamy doesn't recognize. Raven and Echo fall into the hall from an adjacent room.

His sister is being dragged in their arms, and she's thrashing. She claws at them.

"My son! My-" Octavia passes out. Falling sideways into Raven.

Echo immediately lunges for Bellamy. She cut her hair, he notices. The woman doesn't say a word, wrapping her arms around him.

"Echo…" he says, dazed. They're too many memories to split. He glances at Clarke, whose gaze flies away the moment he does.

Then, Jordan speaks, "oh thank god, you're okay."

Jordan Jasper Green—Monty and Harper's kid, named after Jasper. They're all _dead_. He feels their lives being torn from his consciousness all over again.

(" _May we meet again,_ " Bellamy whispered.

Jasper, eyes dead, answered, " _we won't,_ " but they did, and they did, and they did.)

His friends are dead.

What is happening? Vertigo spins around his heart. _Dead. Dead. Dead._

"We gotta move!" Miller says, taking his first shot.

..

They have to get out. Clarke knows that. Taking Octavia into her arms, she says to Raven, "Take us to Sanctum." Raven nods, pulling her helmet on.

 _Bang, bang._ Niylah hits a man, making his form crackle from invisible to visible and lying dead on the floor. "Wha-?" Bellamy sputters, falling further into Echo's arms.

"Sanctum's locked!" Raven yells.

"Just get us out of here!" Miller says.

Clarke hikes up Octavia. There's only one option. "Is Nakara still open?"

"Nakara?" Gabriel asks.

Raven nods. "We need Bardo's stone."

"It's… the hall," Bellamy forces. Clarke glances at him, her body relaxing at his voice. His eyes flicker down the corridor, and Clarke reads him.

_Bang, bang._

Another soldier falls. Then, through a speaker, she hears, " _Clarke Griffin. We request that you stay."_

"Seems like a demand," Miller grumbles. _Bang_ , _bang._

" _Your people will not be harmed."_ She stumbles for a moment. " _You are the key to winning the war,"_ the speaker says. Clarke glares at it, hobbling Octavia at her hip. " _Stay, and your friends will not be harmed."_

Can they just leave her alone? She doesn't even know them.

A man appears next to Clarke, grabbing her wrist. Niylah flips her gun on him. He shoots her with a ball of electricity. No. Not anymore. She's tired of her friends getting hurt because of her. They took Bellamy, and Octavia, and now they electrocuted Niylah.

"You kidnapped my friends!" Clarke shouts, gritting her teeth as she stumbles. She refuses to drop his sister.

Miller turns. _Bang, bang._ The man crumples.

They keep moving. They have to.

"...right," Bellamy mumbles, and Clarke nods signalling for Miller to take the lead. Gabriel picked up Niylah, and is now carrying her through the door. Jordan locks it behind them.

"That should hold," he says, looking a little nervous. "I was never as good as my father." That doesn't matter right now.

"Thank you." Clarke steps forward, turning to Raven. "Nakara."

The spiralling metal hums softly as Raven limps her way toward it. She caresses symbols.

Then, a swirl of green appears before them, a flame that will burn them up. Jordan goes first, then Raven, and Miller. Gabriel carries Niylah. Echo drags Bellamy forward. Clarke hands Octavia off to Hope. They stumble through. Echo takes a step.

Clarke doesn't. She watches, one by one, as her family steps through the Anomaly.

She stays put.

..

He's going home, where they'll only keep fighting, but he feels victorious right now. Then, he looks back. "Clarke…"

(Flickers erupt in Bellamy's mind. " _Who is Clarke Griffin?"_

 _"No one,"_ Bellamy said through gritted teeth.

" _We are going to give you everything you want, boy,"_ a man said. _"Then, we are going to rip it away. Again, and again, and again."_ )

"Go, Bellamy," she whispers, eyes glossy. "They want me. They won't follow you if I stay."

(" _Or give you everything that fears you, and we'll make sure you'll never forget it.")_

"No."

That's so _dumb_. They'll torture her. "It's your turn to leave me behind." She steps towards him, wrapping him in a light, little hug. Her smile is sad, no teeth, just the quirk of her lips. "Forgive each other. Hurt each other. One more time."

He shakes his head. "No, no- I'm so tired of hurting each other. Come on, Clarke." His voice cracks in that way it always does when he says her name.

"Go."

"Bellamy, we have to go," Echo says.

She's leaving. She's leaving. _Again_. Even without the Anomaly, he can't run from his fears. "No. I'm not leaving you here. I can't-"

Banging comes from the door, startling them. She pushes his chest. Clarke stares him in the eyes.

" _Go_."

" _Princess_ ," he whispers desperately. Her eyes widen. It's been so long after all. "I need you."

She's made her choice though, and he knows that. But this isn't walking away from Mount Weather. This is permanent. So he takes the choice from her, and maybe that's cruel, but he's so done leaving Clarke Griffin behind. Heaving her on his shoulder with a burst of determination, he marches toward the portal. "Bellamy!" Her elbows dig into his sides. She claws his hair.

Echo nods a little stoically, burning up into a blizzard of green sparks.

"Bellamy!" Clarke smacks his back, no doubt bruising him. "Stop! No!"

He loses his balance, her feet brush the floor. "You think I'm gonna let you take the easy way out," he snaps. _Bang, crack._ The door blows open. He grits his teeth, tackling her through the portal.

They burn into the green, appearing on a planet of ice, "after everything?"

Instead of an ocean, they collapse in the snow, and immediately he passes out.

Dreams are funny.

They work so much like the Anomaly, either giving you everything you've ever desired or everything you've ever feared.

" _Uncle Bell!"_ A small boy laughs, pattering his way across the Rig. Bellamy scoops up the tan little boy in his arms. He laughs into his nephew's stomach.

" _Don't drop him."_

" _I got it, Princess,"_ Bellamy says, eyes twinkling at the woman. Her arms cross. She's grinning.

" _Yeah, he got it, Princess,"_ August says, pulling Bellamy's ears.

Clarke raises a brow. " _You like when I call you January?"_

"... _yeah_."

 _"I bet_."

Bellamy chuckles, and Clarke ambles up to him, pecking him on the corner of the mouth, over a curly-haired boy.

" _You Blake's are so stubborn."_

" _You're a Blake."_

" _A Griffin-Blake."_ She kisses his lips, and Bellamy sets down his squirming nephew.

" _Ew ew ew,"_ the boy whines.

" _Ah, Griffin-Blake, my bad,"_ he whispers in her ear, moving his lips down her neck. It's weird to do that in front of everyone, isn't it? But then they all disappear and he's in their tent-

"-Bellamy!"

His eyes jolt up, and his first thought is cold.

Jordan squats above him, poking Bellamy's shoulder with the butt of his rifle. His breath fogs. Sitting up, his face is whipped with wind. Bellamy's eyes fill with snow.

"You alright?"

Bellamy squints, looking for a little boy. One who doesn't exist. His mind hasn't caught up yet. August. Little August, splattered with freckles and Lincoln's nose and Octavia's eyes. He was torn from Bellamy's rib cage, fabricated from nothing. He wasn't real, but- how? Why? He was an _uncle_. It's not fair.

..

Clarke can't believe he did that.

She was ready to do what needed to be done for their people. For once, it was herself she had to sacrifice. It wasn't him. Or hundreds of strangers. For once, it could be her.

Hurt each other. Forgive each other. But she doesn't want to. So instead she focuses on how her hair whips in the wind. Hope pushes her palm to Octavia's forehead. "Clarke, she's burning up."

Fuck.

"We need cover until Sanctum unlocks," Clarke says.

"It shouldn't take too long," says Raven.

She directs them toward an icy cave. The entrance a small thing, and everyone has to slip in separately, but the inside is large, blue. Outside, snow flurries down, flakes peaking in occasionally.

"No spiders," Raven adds. Clarke shivers from the memory, blaming it on the cold.

Octavia settles against the wall with Hope's help. Clarke probes, "hey, are you alright?"

Her face is sickeningly pale. It makes Clarke nervous.

"I had a son… with _Lincoln_." Octavia bites her lip, slipping down the wall. "Why would they do that to me?" Clarke winces, well aware of what she's talking about. On their way to save the siblings, they had to deal with their own bouts of hallucinations.

These seem more direct though, more entrancing.

Clarke sits. "I don't think they pick the illusion." She pulls her knees to her chest. Hers weren't kind either. A line of every one she ever loved, alive and mocking her. It's how she broke from it. Wells would never say something like, " _you're the reason Bellamy's missing."_

"It's cruel," Clarke finishes.

She sees Bellamy tense, and she briefly wonders what they forced on him. "I saw him too." He pushes off the wall. His face crumples. "August." Clarke's heart shatters as she looks at him.

"Don't worry, okay?" says Clarke, reaching her fingers to his sister's knee. "We'll figure it out." Her eyes are on him though.

Then, after a moment, he turns away.

..

Bellamy remembers when Octavia lived in a world so small she couldn't stretch her legs. _Their_ world was so small then, so inconsequential, meaningless. It seems easy now, even though they were starving then. He turned away, unable to bear looking at his broken sister anymore. _He did this, broke her._ Maybe. (He killed a nephew he never had.)

Anything is possible for Bellamy; nothing can escape his destruction.

"So you're Bellamy Blake," the short-haired, blonde woman with tattoos on her face says, settling down next to him. "I'm Hope." He looks at her with disinterest. She curls her lips into a frown.

Echo sits down next to them. "I'm so glad you're okay," she says.

"It's been five years for us," Hope clarifies.

_What?_

This woman spent _five_ sad years fighting to get back to him, (just so he could fantasize, again and again about someone who wasn't even her.)

Echo looks broken, battered. He reaches out, clasping their hands. She gives him a kiss on the mouth, hesitant and numb. He owes her this. It feels like an obligation, a loyalty, a promise they've made to one another. (It's felt that way for a very long time.)

"I'm going to catch up with Raven." Echo stands awkwardly.

Hope sighs, puffing out fog beside him. "I don't know you, but Auntie O told me stories." He looks at her again, features softening. "She told me lots of stories. Ones of Hesperides, and Heracles, and Clarke Griffin."

Bellamy crosses his cold arms, sighing into the rays of light peeking into the cave. He can feel the criticism coming.

"Is there a point?"

"Echo is my friend, my family." She sits up off the wall, looking over at Clarke, who's helping Niylah shake off her electrocution. "Auntie O told me how her brother used to look at the princess of the Ark like she was a goddess. Hades to Persephone. Mark Antony to Cleopatra."

He scrunches his mouth, glancing at Clarke, and glaring at Octavia. Bellamy has never considered _kidnapping_ Clarke.

"Echo is my friend." She turns to look at him. "Do you see my problem? Out of all those stories, you were never a coward."

Then Octavia was lying. If anything, he is a coward. "Stories aren't real."

"Neither were your dreams," she says, and it hits a little too deeply. "Here." She stands. A crumpled piece of paper hits him in the face. "I will never understand the devotion women have to you."

"I don't either."

He uncrumples the paper with fingers numb as ice.

" _Bell_ …" He reads the letter once, twice, three times. His eyes prick with tears. " _I get it… I love you…"_ He looks at O. She looks back, gaze flickering to the paper in his hands. His throat closes up and he cowers.

The silence breaks when Raven drops the helmet. "Holy shit."

Clarke stands. "What is it?"

Bellamy rises too, preparing for the worst. It's all that ever comes. "There's a stone on Earth," Raven says, scrambling to pick up the helmet.

When the snow settles on Nakara, it's eerie and quiet. The echoing kind of silence.

He feels his world crumbling as all the loss catches up to him. Each _crunch_ of foot on snow. (His back burns with scars he doesn't have. His lips burn with kisses he didn't give.)

"Hey." Miller stomps his way beside him. The rifle he perpetually holds thumps off his ribs with each step. "You okay?"

"Fine," Bellamy says. Miller can't tell he is lying like Clarke can.

Silence forces its way in. Miller, who was his friend, his second. Fuck, those six years in space crushed more than his relationship with Clarke.

Miller, Clarke, Kane, and—Bellamy glances at his stumbling sister. Hope pulls her to her feet. All he sees are his dreams. Hunting with Miller. Laughing with O. Smoking with Monty and Jasper. Kissing Clarke. He was _happy_. The dichotomy gives him a headache.

Those worlds weren't perfect; he still lost people. His mother was still dead. Lincoln was still dead in one too.

(Maybe they were _real_. It's the Anomaly. For all he knows, they were alternate realities. Maybe, there's one where Becca didn't blow up the Earth in the first place, and they all met in the streets of New York City, or way up in Canada where they grew up playing hockey. If only.)

How could he just _invent_ an entire nephew?

"I'm glad you're not dead," says Miller at long last. "It was your list that saved me, y'know that? Yours and Clarke's."

That fucking list. The way he scraped her name beneath his because: a world without Clarke was so hard to fathom. It was a world he didn't think he could live in. He knows what it's like now. He can survive in a world without her, but he doesn't want to. (He can't _live_.) The walk is slow and quiet. They pull into a cavern and Bellamy hears that familiar low hum. Incredible warmth fills him. The brass orb floats before them.

"We need someone on reconnaissance to Earth to see if it's survivable," Raven says, "and the rest will prepare our people in Sanctum. Just in case."

Raven tinkers with a frequency on her wrist. She's figured out Bardo's tech already. She is so smart, and sometimes, it hurts Bellamy's head to think about it.

Raven says, "so who's going-"

"-I'll go," Clarke and Bellamy say.

"I have experience," Bellamy continues, words clipped. "It's worth the risk."

Her eyes flicker at him.

"Not this time," she says. "Our people are in danger of an attack because you couldn't just listen to me. I'm supposed to be dead anyway." She walks up to Raven, holding out her arm so that Raven can do her thing. "So I'm going."

"You're supposed to be dead," he repeats affronted, stepping toward her. If Bardo got their hands on her, who knows what they would've done?

She freezes, breath faltering. "Yes," she glares, "yet somehow, I'm always left."

His fire is gone immediately.

He knows exactly what she's talking about. How intrinsically broken every lost life left her, because she was the one who stole them. Bellamy knows Mount Weather shattered her, and closing the dropship door.

He knows.

"Just do it together," Echo says, arms crossed. Everyone goes quiet. "What? Every time you split it all goes wrong anyway." Dejection fills her tone.

(He's a horrible human being.)

"She's right," Raven says, pushing Clarke's wrist. "We can handle Sanctum. We just have to keep them out, don't we?" She grins at Clarke. "Besides it's been like…" she glances at her wrist, "Shit- time moves slower here than on Sanctum."

"How much?" Jordan asks.

"Two seconds to one."

A sigh escapes everyone. At least, there's that. "And on Earth?" Gabriel prods.

"Same as Sanctum."

This... might actually work. Might. Could. Bellamy refuses to bet it all on one plan, not again.

"This is happening," Gabriel murmurs. His awe is palpable. "We're going to Earth."

"Maybe," Jordan murmurs.

Raven caresses four symbols, and a green swirl tornadoes outward. Bellamy looks at Echo, and she nods, holding onto Hope's arm. Their loyalty is a thread, one that refuses to break. It's who they are. He glances at his sister, thumbing the note in his pocket. There's so much he needs to do.

But, (there's always a but, and it's always the same one): his people come first.

Miller reaches behind his back, snatching a pistol. He pulls out the magazine, before slamming it with his palm.

"Five rounds," he says as Bellamy takes the weapon, checks the safety and tucks it behind him in his waistband. "May we meet again."

"We will," Bellamy says. He steps next to Clarke, and for a moment, they take a breath. It's their final journey to the ground, maybe, hopefully, pleadingly.

"The air could be toxic," she whispers as they take their last steps, together.

The air is thin. It's shallow and sudden.

The green disappears behind them, casting them in the low glow of the moonlight. He collapses.

It's still silver, still white. Snow is still cold, soaking his knees.

"What…" Clarke says, picking up a handful. It sifts between her fingers, melting and sticking to her pinking knuckles. He looks up. Mountains surround them. Snow covers the decay of rumble and old structures.

"Holy shit."

Bellamy stands, brushing his knees. He glances at Clarke; in the dim moonlight, she looks seventeen again, innocent and cranky. She looks like that girl he hated once; the sight warms his chest. "Snow is pretty," she whispers.

"It's cold." They didn't really get the chance to appreciate it on Nakara.

Her shoulders fall and she pushes her palm into the bank. "I know. It's just water in its solid form, but-"

"-It's pretty." They never really had time to appreciate anything. She looks up at him, giving a smile only half a heart can. Over her shoulder, he sees a sign, old and frozen.

..

She raises her gaze to Bellamy, and his flickers away. He thinks she doesn't notice he does that. She does. Honestly, he's always been shit at hiding his stares, or maybe she could feel him reaching into her heart with every glance. It's not like she ever met his eyes. This once, she doesn't think he was looking at her though. She turns her head, and notices a sign.

It says, " _Welcome to Jasper"._

Her heart shatters immediately, much like his must've seconds ago.

"We're in Canada."

"I hate Earth," he mumbles, sounding more broken than she expects. She doesn't have time to ask if he's all right.

A crackle comes through Clarke's arm band. "... _Clarke… com… in."_

Clarke pulls her hand from the snow. The flecks melt on her fingers, reflecting the moon. Tears of snow drip down her arm.

"We're good," Clarke says.

" _Okay_." Raven makes an exhausted sigh. " _Every three hours means every three hours."_

Clarke grins, glancing up at Bellamy. He looks away again, and her grin falls. "Three hours for us?" She silently does the math in his head. For a moment, there's no answer but a gust of wind. It's a cold one, right through her jacket.

_"For you."_

Once they get to Sanctum, it won't matter, Clarke reckons. "'Kay." Clarke pauses. "Tell Madi I love her."

" _Duh_."

Then, Clarke glances at him. He should tell Octavia he loves her… or Echo. Clarke expects him to, honestly, but his expression is blank. It's intentional.

"May we meet again," Clarke murmurs, looking away.

Bellamy tenses.

He doesn't like the phrase, she knows. The Traveller's Blessing rarely resulted in meeting again. Every time they're uttered, they sound like a curse, or maybe a death sentence.

(An acceptance that, no, not everyone makes it.)

Her arm drops. Wind blows through. "We're gonna freeze to death," she jokes, trying to lift his mood. He scoffs but she hears the lightness as he crunches his way through knee high snow. She joins him, examining the buildings. Most are in rubble: erosion, water damage and heavy snow seems to be the cause. Some are still standing, or relatively. It's dark though, and freezing. Her feet are actually going numb. The air is crisp, and difficult to take in on full breaths.

She notices a well, and then what was maybe once a library. Finally:

"There," he says.

His hand points to the most intact cabin she's seen so far. It's two stories. The porch is held up by columns, but half collapsed and snow pushes at least half way up the door. Three windows are broken. The shingles are battered, but Clarke doesn't really care.

She skitters passed him. Her shoulders kiss her ears.

"Snow is cold," she jabs. His lip quirks. Then, her foot hits something solid in the snow and she falls. It's not a bad fall, not at all. It's the kind someone would laugh at.

He does. She hears his stifled chuckles behind her.

Snow scrapes her face, filling her nose. Clarke shivers. Her hands push into the snow, but it's too much pressure on one point. Every time she tries to stand, they sink.

"Help me, asshole," she seethes, sputtering into the ice again.

Fuck, she hasn't called him that in a very long time. It's laughable how her heart twinges a little at the idea. It's wistfully dangerous, but her heart has always been the most dangerous thing about her, when let loose. She rarely lets it loose. He hasn't in a long time, but he used to.

Their hearts weren't all that different, but there was one thing that was glaring.

She hid hers away from him, leaving him broken, wandering and confused more than once. He bared his for her, because of her. He let her see his mistakes, and she left him on the hook out to dry but never collected. Clarke was scared.

It's okay now. He doesn't bare himself for her anymore.

Bellamy stomps over to her, snatches her by the armpits and picks her up. There is resistance on her foot. He tugs again. She gives, but an arm comes with her, wrangled around her ankle. Adrenaline kicks in, and he nearly throws Clarke in his exertion to get _whatever-the-fuck_ off of her.

"Fuck!" Clarke yells, kicking her feet in a panic as Bellamy tugs her away from the corpse.

He falls back in a poof of snow, Clarke cradles on his chest. He's warm. She sits up.

"That scared the shit outta you," she says. Clarke glances down on him as he grits his teeth. He seems distinctly uncomfortable.

"Me?" He pushes her hips subtly with his hands.

She goes quiet— _oh_ —Bellamy fidgets beneath her. She hops off him abruptly, flushing as she hears him heave in relief. Then, her eyes meet the body, and all embarrassment leaves her. It's replaced with a throb, a guilt.

"It's a child," she whispers. A dead, little kid. Behind her, she hears Bellamy sit up.

"How many dead people are just laying around?" she cracks out. Her fingers shake, tingling. Her nails feel out of place.

She really is the Commander of Death.

"We gotta get inside." His tone is soft. Bellamy grabs her elbow. It sparks right through her. She always hated and loved when he touched her, throwing off her balance.

"No."

She pushes toward the body, rolling it over. Bile rises in her throat. His skin is blue, leathery and his small eyes are frozen shut, trails of ice running down his face. He froze to death, crying. Why? What satisfaction does Earth get from doing this to her?

"Clarke."

"Does death just follow us?" No, it's never followed him. He followed her into death; it didn't matter where she went. "Me?" Her arms hug her frame, holding in every sin. "We were supposed to protect them, the hundred, _our people,_ but we're the only ones left."

After everything her and Bellamy did, to save them, to fight for them. They're all dead. It's tragic. Disgusting. The genocide at Mount Weather didn't matter. Every person they saved died anyway. She killed Finn for an alliance that burned anyway. Lexa died for nothing. _None of it mattered._

She looks at him. His eyes are cold, but they haven't been warm since before Praimfaya. He came down a different man. His heart doesn't beat like it used to.

He brushes her elbow, "let's talk about this inside, please."

..

Of course, the moonlight is as generous as their bad luck.

A pack of wolves carves their way around the corner he and Clarke came from. They're large, terrifyingly so. Each the size of a car. The moon glints off their grey fur, and their noses sniff into the snow. One has black fur, and the others seem to follow it.

"Clarke, now." Her watering blue eyes meet his, and shoot to the wolves.

At the same time, one with grey fur, and piercing blue eyes looks back.

It growls. She bolts up.

He pushes Clarke by him. She stumbles up through the knee high snow. Rhythmically, paws thump into the snow. He whips out his pistol, clicking off the safety as he stumbles behind her.

He points it in his panic, and stupidly shoots. He doesn't think he hits a thing. _Four._

Just run. Protect Clarke.

Bellamy hears a growl behind him, but doesn't risk looking. Clarke snatches the door handle, hissing at the contact. Cold metal clicks darkly when she turns it. It's locked. It's fucking locked. She releases a frustrated growl, pushing passed to the window.

He should've looked, should've taken his time on the shot. The closest wolf, the black-furred leader of the pack, burrows it's teeth deep into Bellamy's leg.

"Bellamy!" Clarke elbows the window. It shatters like his bone.

The pain seers through his calf. He shoots again, hitting its leg. It yelps, but doesn't let go. Bellamy twists his upper body to press the barrel of the gun into its nostril. For a moment his brown eyes lock on the beast's yellow. This beast could be a puppy, a pet, a friend, so much like all the monstrous people Bellamy killed could've been good men.

Could've. Should've. Would've. Didn't.

He squeezes the trigger. The creature releases a devastating howl as it's snout implodes and the teeth release him.

He's an animal murderer too now. Bellamy scrambles back against the door, neck pressing into the cold handle as the wolves begin to circle and pace. His breath is foggy and haggard. The snow beneath him bleeds. The gun cradles in his lap.

Two bullets, five wolves.

Then, the door swings open and he falls into the house with the smallest avalanche ever witnessed. The white goes dark, dusty, and he's looking up at Clarke. She slams her weight into the door, forcing it closed.

The room is homely. Holes in the drywall look fist sized and the stairs behind him are steep.

A belt lays over the frayed edge of the couch. The window she broke lays in a pile, soaking in blood. Snow blows in. The moonlight does too. Clarke drags him into the living room, blood dripping down her arms. The window pane carved her.

"Bellamy?"

"I'm fine," he grunts.

Then, Clarke Griffin does the thing she only ever did in his dreams. She unbuttons his pants, and starts pulling them down. He can't really enjoy it, slightly distracted by the trail of blood from the door to the couch he's against.

"I'm sorry. I should've listened-" she tugs the jeans off his ankles. His head feels light "Bellamy." She pauses only for a second. "Keep your eyes on me. Tell me a story." Octavia's note falls from the pocket, drifting down into their blood.

He's too tired to grab it.

She grabs the belt off the couch, fastening it around his thigh. "Any story." She tightens it and the cold leather bites into his skin. His head feels light. For some reason, he smells flowers. "Bellamy, _talk_ to me."

He looks at his leg. Three puncture wounds mock him.

"Do you know… the- story of the seasons," he starts. "Hades and Persephone and…" Fuck he's delirious. She shakes her head no in a panic.

They may be strained to fragments of what they used to be, but Bellamy can still tell when Clarke Griffin doesn't know what to do.

"I have to find a medkit, something- _anything_ to close this," she says, eyes shooting everywhere. "Pressure." His hands push on his puncture wounds.

And he does apply pressure, for maybe a minute before his vision blacks.

..

Clarke scrambles to her feet, flying up the stairs. A trail of blood follows her, leaking down her arm.

They creak a little threateningly. She checks the old bathroom, ripping open the drawers. Nothing but bandaids and tampons and expired hairspray. She breaks into a sweat. Leaving the bathroom, she passively calls down the stairs, "Bellamy!"

Nothing. He says nothing.

She checks a room next. Majestically, a medkit sits in the closet. With trembling hands, she opens it.

Needles. Thread. Gauze.

She rushes down the steps with it. Bellamy sits, breath ragged. A pool of blood grows beneath him as his head lolls. She still needs something to clean the wound. Her vision blurs as her energy tanks.

Running into the kitchen, a bottle of _Jack_ _Daniel's_ sits on the table.

She grabs it. Blood pools beneath her. Oh, fuck. It's a lot of blood. She'll bleed out before she can fix him. Her eyes begin to water. Squeezing them shut, she lets out a breath.

Maybe death does follow her.

..

He feels warmth when he wakes up, the sweltering kind.

Behind his eyelids, oranges and reds dance. An ache thrums from his leg. His eyes flutter open, catching on a fire cracking in a potbelly stove. A three-quarters-full bottle of bourbon sits beside scattered bandages.

"...no, he'll be okay. How's Sanctum?"

"Quiet. Just trying to keep everyone from killing each other." Bellamy rolls over to face her. "Stay safe you guys."

"No promises," Clarke says into her wrist. It's a joke, but it sounds a little solemn.

The warmth sinks into his back as he looks at her. Her arm drops. "Hey," she says. She steps forward, kneeling in front of him.

"Hey."

"How you feeling?" Bellamy looks down at his aching leg, realizing that he's wearing a gross pair of yellow flannel pjs. She must've found them. And put them on him. He cringes a bit at the image his mind gives him.

"I'll live." Her frown deepens.

"I'm sorry," she says.

"What?" A dull throb penetrates his spine from his ankle.

She huffs. "If I was faster-"

His hand grabs her ankle lightly. "If you were slower, I'd be dead." Clarke glares at him, simmering. She knows he's right. He looks at her arms, shredded and- "did you stitch _yourself_?"

She grins. Holy fuck, she's crazy. Brave. Awesome.

She drops a crumpled up paper in front of his face, stained in blood but he knows exactly what it is.

"I didn't read it," she murmurs.

"I know."

He glances at it again, and a clench overtakes him. It's a hand on his throat, or a heel, or a noose. Bellamy rolls over and grabs the bottle. If he can't fucking walk, might as well make the most of it. He sits up.

"Want some?" He unscrews the black cap.

It's warm, tastes like those caramel squares he used to steal from the market for Octavia. He was a stupid boy. Bellamy looks at instantaneous reward, not long-term consequences. It's who he is.

There's some vanilla in the bourbon too, sweet, but it burns like cinnamon when he swallows.

He expects a no, a " _we have responsibilities, Bellamy."_ She was always about the long-term consequences. Not right now. She takes a sip, holding in her wince (or trying to). He quirks his lips at her, and suddenly, it feels weird. This seems like a situation where—a younger Bellamy, a dumber one—would've smirked at her. Maybe teased her.

That's not them anymore. He really wants it to be.

His mind flashes to Ark walls, and a girl wearing his shirt, playing chess and drawing dead people. Talking about finally getting that drink.

_It's not real. It could've been._

He really wants what they had back. "Not refined enough for you, Princess?" Fuck, it even sounds like he's trying too hard. He hates it. He hates it so fucking much.

Her eyes widen again. "Ass."

"And Finn said you weren't fun." Fucking idiot.

For a moment, she looks solemnly nostalgic, like an elder with their music. Then, confusion takes on her face. "How do you know that?"

His mouth opens and closes.

Bellamy laughs softly. Since when did he _laugh?_ He hasn't for over a century. So he laughs, because he doesn't know what to say. _Oh, you know, just had a couple dreams where I fucked you. Loved you. A couple where you loved me._

 _Oh, you know, just found out you're my greatest desire._ That's normal, he thinks.

So he laughs a little. Clarke stares at him, on edge. Bellamy laughs at his life, at the things he's done. At what he's lost. Monty and Jasper. Fucking Jasper. They were his friends and it feels like they've been ripped from him like never before. His fucking nephew.

"My nephew," he says. "He was the cutest little kid…" his voice shatters on the caramel square taste.

"I'm sorry," she says, and after a moment, almost nervously, she adds, "I'm here for you."

Is she? She seems to love leaving him in her dust, scrambling to hold himself together. _Just found out I'm afraid of you leaving me._ Pretty average. No matter how many times she was willing to abandon him, he's still waiting.

He's a terribly stupid man.

They trade sips and he shifts and pain needles through his knee. Bellamy grits his teeth and Clarke's eyes shine at him in concern. "Radioactive super wolves," he mutters, taking a large gulp. "Fuck."

"Earth is survivable."

Bellamy glances up at her, chest lifting like it hasn't in over a century. They can live _here_. (They can live.)

He takes another sip, leaning his head back against the ground. Pushing the note towards her, he says, "it was from O. I just…"

It's so hard.

Clarke was always who he went to with his Octavia struggles, but he didn't have to say the words then. They just had this _way_ of communicating. She would always say exactly what he needed. Know exactly what he wanted to hear.

She carefully unfolds the paper, glancing at him. He nods his consent and she begins skimming the words.

He loiters away on the bottle.

When she's done, she folds it carefully, taking the bourbon from his grasp for a sip. Bottle settling it between them, it glows like a sunrise in the firelight.

He waits for her advice: Clarke's all-seeing knowledge.

"Finish your story of seasons," she says, crossing her legs.

He sits up to his elbow, cringing when his calf throbs. "What?"

"You're forcing yourself to talk about something you aren't ready for, so finish your story."

He thinks she's kidding, but she looks at him with earnestness.

He starts slowly, because well, he's never told anyone a story except Octavia, little and lovely as she was. She was always bored by the stories. He loved them though. And she loved him, so she listened, and listened and listened.

Bellamy loved Octavia once, too.

"Hades was a preconceived demon," he says, taking a sip of the burnt-sugar bourbon. "He was loyal, and strong, but there was a competition with his brothers; he had the shortest straw and therefore was left with the scraps of life. The Underworld."

Clarke raises her eyes to him, cheeks flushed with alcohol. "Misunderstood."

Bellamy meets her warm gaze, throat tingling. His body feels hot and the thrum of his calf has stopped but the pads of her fingers sear him. The fire dances off her cropped hair as she removes her jacket.

He tells her how Persephone caught Hades' eye one day.

She was a perfect little thing, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. A princess. (He doesn't say princess, but lines are blurred when you're drunk.)

After a while of just watching, Hades fell in love with the goddess of grain. "I think it was her life that drew him in." Bellamy shifts onto his elbow. "Her happiness."

"Yeah?"

Zeus was against the idea, but Hades was a selfish man, a terrible one.

He granted her a flower: a promise of peace for the world around her. She was the protectress of the after-life, or would be soon, and so she went to the flower. She was called to death, for she intrigued it.

It intrigued her too.

The ground caved beneath her, crumbling Persephone into the depths of the Underworld. He was a terribly stupid god. "He _loved_ her. It makes you do terribly stupid things," Clarke says, pulling her knees to her chest. Her eyes falter as though remembering.

(Like crossing an army of enemies, at only a glimpse of their eyes. Like pulling a lever together. He hates levers.)

"Doesn't make it right," he whispers. Clarke looks at the note sitting precariously between them, creased and broken.

(Oh right, it's also like shooting a chancellor, and falling to earth.) He takes a swig, and so does she.

That's funny; she thinks he's thinking of Octavia.

For a moment, (always only a moment), Bellamy absorbs her appearance. Cuts litter her face. He wonders if he'll see her without them one day. Her hands, covered in blood and so much charcoal, glow orange in the fire.

They've always had charcoal on them. Bellamy never stopped to ask why. He wishes he had.

"Nothing is ever right," she eventually responds. He nods. The fire crackles.

Demeter, Persephone's mother spent her days wandering the earth for her daughter, and when she found her whereabouts, she cursed the earth in her grief. This led to the outcries of humanity.

"Winter?"

"Yeah," he answers.

"Seasons are weird. They were just concepts on the Ark. An Earth Skills lesson, but here, they're…" she stumbles for the word; she grins, "pretty."

"Very pretty."

He talks and talks, voice going hoarse as he veers into origins of side characters and descriptions of the setting. His mind begins to haze as he drinks.

Their fingers brush with every exchange of bottle, and Bellamy supposes he should ignore the tingle and continue his story.

Due to "humanity's whining", the gods threatened Hades.

"He's a horrible person," he says. "If kidnapping was bad, it kind of gets worse."

Clarke leans in as he tells her how Hades made Persephone consume six pomegranate seeds. Through some sick, twisted pledge, she was cursed to spend months annually with Hades, one for every seed.

But she loved him too.

"Of course, she did," Clarke says. He looks at her. There is no expression on her face. "One-sided love only happens in real life." He moves passed her words.

Persephone had to leave, but she came back. She came back to him, again and again.

Hades only had eyes for one, his protectress of the after-life. Through it all, he was loyal to her, loved her, unlike Zeus, who took anyone to bed, all while smirking at his wife.

"He's a dick," she laughs. It's a short giggle. His voice pitters out, and he stares at the roof. "You and Octavia can fix this, come back to each other."

_t's you,_ he wants to say, but he has a girlfriend. _I've done stupid things, because-_ As if he was brave enough, either way. He sits up, fully sitting back on his palms. She looks at him like all those dreams did. But he's drunk, isn't he?

Can they fix this much hurt? Six years and a betrayal or two? Can they _really?_

"She seems to understand what you did for her." Her hand gestures to the letter. He and Octavia, right, because when do he and Clarke ever talk about themselves. "Maybe you should try to understand her. She was crazy but she was a kid when they went into that bunker. It breaks people."

He stares at her, falling on his shoulders with a huff.

She picks up the note, continuing, "I always said she'd see how special you are."

The tightness in him unravels, and like a child taking their first steps, he stumbles. Awkwardly, he nods because, fuck, she said something kind to him. This blunt girl who always says it how it is. She told him he was special, told him his heart was strong. She could have had it, if she wanted. He would've given it to her. _It's you._

Fuck, all he wanted was her goddamn bracelet. He didn't sign up for this.

He gulps the bourbon, noting how it's down to a quarter. Clarke says, finishing her lecture of sincerity, "you need to tell her you love her, because you do." She pauses. "Anything can happen, and you really don't wanna miss your chance."

For a moment it sits in the air. He knows a thing or two about missed chances.

"Even with the world ending, I couldn't." _Praimfaya._ His hand lazily rests on the bottle. "Even when I was _sure_ I loved her, I _couldn't_." The smell of ash and honey fills his nose as he closes his eyes, taking in the crackling flames. "I just can't, Princess."

The moniker escapes him. It's out there now, his third slip. She doesn't call him out on it.

"You need to," she presses more than she usually does—did, when they were close, and bore things together. "I won't make you."

"You've never made me do anything." She's made him sad, angry, frustrated, unbelievably joyful, and terrifyingly vulnerable in ways he couldn't comprehend.

But, she never made him _do_ a thing. She made him _want_ to do things, (like stay, when he was packed and ready to run. She was enough for him to stay.) She made him want to save people, in every version of every world she did that. In this one, especially. He left her alone, on Earth, for six years, because she wasn't enough the second time.

Because what she spawned within him was enough to let him close that door.

"I made you go into Mount Weather."

"You like to _pretend_ that you made me."

She takes a swig, and gives him a little smirk. "You wouldn't have gone unless I sent you."

She's right; he still remembers how she trembled when she said she couldn't lose him.

"It was worth it." Fuck, he remembers how much it hurt when she said that too.

"It wasn't." She tilts the bottle on the hardwood, it levels out in a golden-brown wave. "I sent you in with no reconnaissance experience, and no backup. It was selfish. I was trying to prove something."

"It had to be done." His hand reaches for her ankle.

"It was dumb, and stupid." He doesn't have it in him to joke about redundancy. "Once, Lexa told me-" she says her name with such fondness, and Bellamy wonders if he was ever important enough to summon that tone.

"Told you…"

Clarke looks at him, right in the eyes. "She told me love was weakness." Her eyes flicker away and back. "And I decided I was being weak."

It's like his dream, but he didn't know about the conversation before said dream. How-He could focus on the implication, but he doesn't.

He remembers a similar talk he had about that with Echo— _Echo_ , he pulls his hand away. Clarke's eyes crack—he said Octavia was his weakness, then. He rationalized, at the time, that a dead girl he'd only known for seven months couldn't be (shouldn't be) his weakness.

But she was, and _is_.

Clarke crosses her arms, eyes glowing in the flames. "Lexa was wrong. Love is the reason I fight. Keep _fighting_." She pauses. "I survived six years because I loved my mom, and Madi, because I couldn't wait to see Raven, and Monty… and you."

She takes a swig, a big one, that contracts her neck, and fuck, he shouldn't stare.

He asks a dumb fucking question. "Did you call everyone up on the Ring?"

For a moment, she looks at him, hard and bold. Just like Clarke always did.

"No."

"Just me."

"Just you," she stops, settling the bottle down, "every day for 2,199 days," her tears begin to pile but not pour. Her voice doesn't quake. "You were three-hundred-and-seventy-two days late, did you know?"

Bellamy sits up: he doesn't know what to say—does he ever?—but he can comfort her physically. All he can give her is him, and hope it's enough. He takes her into his arms, and she sobs into his chest. She says, "I thought I failed. I thought you all suffocated to death."

"You saved us." Her hands lock on the small of his back.

She keeps crying harder, so hard could fill the dried oceans of earth at this point. Clarke doesn't seem to hear him. "You were late, so _late_ ," she hiccups, "and it turns out 'you don't even need me anymore'." He's an ass, such an ass.

"I-"

"-I didn't know you needed me in the _first place._ " She pushes off him, throwing her arms in the air. "Was I supposed to? I needed you. I _still_ need you. It's pathetic." He hates himself. "Clarke Griffin, 'the Commander of Death'." She airquotes. He hates himself so fucking much. "She doesn't _break_. Look at me now."

She's been broken since they hit the ground, Bellamy thinks. "I'm alone with you for less than an hour and I'm falling apart," she sobs, falling back into him.

It's him. It's them; they ruin each other. Bringing out the things they lock up.

"You're strong," he soothes, carding his fingers through her hair. "We all have our limits."

Silence falls over them, and it's awkward. This kind of awkwardness was never there at the start, not even when they argued. There was a charge, and tension, but never awkwardness. They used to be honest with each other.

He used to tell her everything, (except that he loved her).

What if they were honest with one another again? They will never be those two people they used to be. The thought is a little devastating. Her hair is too short and his face is too scruffy. He feels like a different man than he used to be.

It's not wrong. It's different. They're different.

"I left you behind and it destroyed me," he says. "Then, you were alive, and I just _couldn't lose you again."_ She squeezes into his shoulder, listening between the sobs. "I lost you anyway, and the hurt was fucking _worse_." His back burns against the flames, just like those scars he could've had. "I thought of all the time I wasted. About how much I needed you."

He had breathed her to life, after loving her to death.

"I need you," he repeats. "We need you so much. I thought it was wrong."

Silence carves between them, soft and sweet. It smells like burnt caramel. She sits in his arms. Her breathing is harsh but eventually, it evens out. Clarke falls asleep, tucked into his shoulder. He feels no weight. Not one anywhere near what he's been carrying for years.

" _Clarke, check in_ ," comes from her wrist. He startles. She grumbles, but doesn't wake.

Bellamy brings her arm near his face, pushing his thumb on the button he has seen Clarke press. "We're good."

" _We're not,"_ Raven says _, "Bardo keeps sending soldiers."_

"Earth is survivable," Bellamy tries for a whisper as Clarke grumbles and fidgets. "Dangerous but survivable."

" _Of course."_ He grins. _"Sky people and Grounder clans are on board. They say they believe us because it's Wanheda and her Knight."_ A silent moment. _"I didn't start that. Blame Jordan."_

He blames the Grounders, for forcing a myth on a teenager.

Bellamy doesn't say anything for a while, not exactly in the mood. Mind still heavy with a drunken haze, he sighs.

"It's a one way trip."

"Yeah."

"See you soon," he finishes.

..

He knows he shouldn't be walking. He knows that well.

But it's either he stares at a sleeping Clarke Griffin—wondering if her skin burns like a lobster, amongst other stupid thoughts—or he gets some air. There's nothing to occupy his mind now, nothing but a bunch of lives that don't exist. That could've, if he'd made different choices.

He chooses air, pushing to his feet.

Why can't he just forget? He grabs the bottle. His leg throbs, similar to how his back had. _Fuck_. He leans against the wall, hobbling his way to the stairs, then against the stairs to the kitchen.

It's not a big room. Rays of moonlight peak in, lighting up the dust.

The quiet is eerie. There's a magazine on the oak table. He overlooks it, in favour of searching the drawers. He knows Clarke probably already had, but she might've missed something in her rush. Besides, it's a good reason to stay occupied. A good reason not to think of Peter and his father. Of Jasper. Of Monty. Of Lincoln.

It's a good reason not to remember how Clarke Griffin tasted on his lips.

He opens a couple drawers: pencils skid, some old envelopes pick up dust. His leg catches on a cupboard handle. _Thud_. He nearly shrieks as pain shoots through his veins.

Bellamy cringes, wondering if he woke up Clarke. If it's anything like the Rig, no, but she'll wake up exhausted.

He opens the last drawer. In it, there is a marble, a dull pencil, some dusty paper, and—a switchblade. He hates his life, himself. He hates Earth too. It's really mean.

The knife is different in menial, stupid ways.

This one is completely silver. Picking it up, Bellamy tests it. _Click_. Not a hint of rust. The blade glints in the moon. _Click_ closed. Bellamy holds it softly in his hand. He hears a voice, tensing. He realizes she was talking in her sleep. Bellamy never knew she did that. Not like he had the chance to know. _Click_.

He grabs the pencil and paper too, because—well, he doesn't know why.

Sighing, he stumbles over to the table. He settles into the wooden chair. Then, he breathes. Or tries. His hand comes up to rub his face, scraping his scruff.

It makes him angry and sad in ways he can't fathom.

He needs to use his head: his head, she said once. Bellamy's tired of his fucking head. It hurts. All of it. He's just tired. Uncle Bellamy didn't have a beard. He didn't use his head. Uncle Bellamy also didn't lose everything he loved. The boiling under his skin suddenly overwhelms him, like a whistling teapot.

He needs it gone. He needs it gone now.

When he saw his reflection on the Ring, he never recognized himself. Through every horrible thing he did on earth, he shaved. It was ritualistic. He shaved because, maybe—if he looked the same—he was still the same man that didn't commit mass genocide.

He raises the blade to his face, hand trembling.

This is such a bad idea. He's going to hurt himself. Good. He knows his tendency to beat the shit out of himself is incredibly unhealthy. He hasn't broken down since 2150. It's been quite a while.

(Just like Clarke. The moment he had a second to breathe next to her, it all came crumbling.)

His eyes begin to water and it honestly feels like someone stabbed him in the heart with this knife, puncturing his conscience. Tears peel down his cheeks.

"Fuck," he says, nicking his cheekbone with the blade. His voice is chapped, dry, shattering.

..

Clarke wakes up worried, in absolute panic.

He's not there. It's an irrational worry, she knows. Still, she sits up, and looks for him. She stands, peaking her head around the corner. Bellamy sits at the wooden, aged table. He has a knife to his face.

"Bellamy?"

It clatters on the table, denting the oak. "What are you doing?" She hesitantly steps toward him. His face is patchy, like burning fields.

"Nothing," he says.

If there was one thing she hasn't felt with Bellamy Blake since that night under the tree, it was shame. Right now, it is all she can comprehend in his eyes. Her eyes soften on him. His gaze is spooked, like she's a ghost from years past. He has cuts on his face, and so she turns to grab a couple bandaids from the medkit. When she comes back, he tenses again. When she sits down, he flinches.

Her heart squeezes.

She doesn't remember a time when he flinched. He trusted her once. He fell apart in front of her. He used to. They used to. He used to love her. She thinks he did, at least, in a way or two. She slowly takes the blade from his hand _clicking_ it closed.

Immediately, his gaze softens on her. Clarke presses a tissue to his chin.

"You're okay," she whispers.

Silence fills in after, along with a hollowing cold. The flames aren't enough anymore. _Click_. She begins scraping at his cheeks, watching as his stubble falls from his face.

His skin is warm, and she can see more freckles than she ever noticed before. She wants to count them.

More than a billion, she's sure.

For a moment, she has difficulty working around the cleft in his chin. Her fingers cradle his jaw, and she has the embarrassing thought: _kiss him._ She's thought it before, many, many times, when she was younger. Clarke was terrified back then, back before Praimfaya, and it was too soon. She also had the fleeting thought that he wasn't interested. It's not like he ever tried anything. His eyes burn her. His breath warms her fingers.

"You should keep it," he breathes. Her hand falters for a moment, scared he's read her mind. "The knife."

She nods.

She stays quiet, shaving away the rest of his scruff. When she's done, she pulls away, because there is no reason to be in his space longer than necessary. Not one. _Click_.

Maybe she will keep it.

"I like it."

For some reason, his lip twitches in relief. "You do?" Their eyes meet, burning for a minute. Suddenly, he blurts, "I wrote O."

His hands lead her to the paper in front of him. It's small, words crossed out, letters remade.

_Dear O,_

_I love you. I don't forgive you. I'm sorry._

She gives him a little smile. "It's perfect."

He almost looks like that Bellamy she used to know. His hair is parted down the middle. Clarke doesn't stop herself, reaching up to thread her fingers through his scalp. His eyes widen as she begins shaking her fingers. His curls fall into his forehead, tickling his eyebrows. Back to the Bellamy she knew. Not quite: his jaw is sharper, and his eyes are colder.

She really has to stop.

Her thumb curves over his face, tracing his cheekbone. His skin is so dark, and hers is so white. He's a beautiful man. His eyes are pure brown, pupils blown but his lashes clump with melted snow.

Then, her thumb rubs over a scar above his lip, the smallest slit.

"I forgot this was there," she murmurs.

"Me too," he says, looking nowhere but her eyes.

"How'd you get it?" She asks. He grins at her, shoulders shaking in a laugh.

..

Clarke has to go find the stone within the next few days.

They argue about it. She shouldn't go alone, but it has to get done, so she goes when he inevitably passes out. For a day, she searches, finding the stone. Clarke comes home, frosted over and numb, to a pouty, clean-shaven man. His arms are crossed, but he doesn't say a thing.

"They can come home," she says as he stokes a fire for her in the potbelly stove, "in a week."

..

"We're back bitches," Madi shrieks, jumping from the Anomaly. Almost immediately, Bellamy sees her look over her shoulder and right at his sister. O smiles, tired and wavering. She catches his eye, and he smiles at his sister.

 _He smiles at his sister:_ it shouldn't be as rare as it is.

They were the first to come through, but they are quickly followed by the rest of Wonkru, and then, the few, frail remnants of the Children of Gabriel and Eligius III who decided to join them.

"That's nearly everyone," Raven says, then she radios Murphy. "Cockroach, destroy the stone on my signal." Clarke's signal. This is a fresh start. All are pardoned.

"The fight isn't over," Clarke says next to him. Is it ever?

"No."

"But, maybe-" Echo walks through the Anomaly. God, he has so much to do. Raven nods, and Clarke says, "Close it."

"We can do it together." Her eyes light up, and fuck, it's been 131 years but he feels like he knows the girl in front of him again. He feels like he can do this.

It's funny, he thinks.

She's here, right here, next to him, with Earth cold beneath their feet. It's fresh, new. It's fucking pretty. After all the world's efforts, snapping them in half like a stick over a kneecap, and pulling their stitches beyond taut, they've clawed their way back to each other. It's not perfect.

It's the world where he couldn't save Peter or his father, and where Clarke is a mother to a beautiful girl named Madi who lived.

It's the world where Jasper died, and so did Monty, but Jordan Jasper Green is here and waiting for them. It's the world where Murphy made something of himself, and the one where Raven pushes through the pain of walking every day. It's the one where Bellamy got Lincoln killed, ripping his sister apart indefinitely. He's robbed himself and her of a nephew, a tiny bundle named August.

He murdered him.

It's also the one where she's here, to hold him through every single fuck up and mishap. It's the one thing, he supposes, has never changed. They may have left one another, over and over and over. But: when they were needed, they came back. Maybe, she'll stay, and he can let her into his heart again. It's been vacant for a long, lonely time. Maybe, he won't fuck it up this time.

Bellamy marches with their people, migrating down the mountain. He's got so much to do and fix. There is animosity brewing within the people, but everyone's tired. They see the wolves; they cower at the sight of Bellamy when he pulls out his gun. They stay away.

Humanity wanders over a ridge and they see a town, buildings leaky and in need of repair. Clarke stands next to him, scanning the roofs. She looks at him, and he keeps her gaze.

"Together, then," she says.

He is the earth, this place called Jasper, and she is humanity. Welcome home.

. .

.

.

.

_**~fin** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the end!

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! (im going to bed).
> 
> Oh yeah, fuck canon :)
> 
> Edit: so this was nominated for two Bellarke Fanfiction awards... by idk who, but I didn’t even know that was a thing. Thank you!
> 
> Be sure to vote! https://bellarkeficawards.tumblr.com/


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